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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


Purchased  by  the  Hamill  Missionary  Fund. 


Division 


DS7ZI 
T?  75 


Section 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2016 


https://archive.org/details/changingchinesecOOross 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


The  Cliff  of  the  Thousand  Gods,  on  the  Kialing 
River  in  North  Szechuan 


sfW  ur 

f FEB  171912 

THE  '^Lorni 

CHANGING  CHINESE 

THE  CONFLICT  OF  ORIENTAL  AND 
WESTERN  CULTURES  IN  CHINA 


EDWARD  ALSWORTH  ROSS,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  SOCIOLOGY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN 
AUTHOR  OF  “SOCIAL  CONTROL,**  “ FOUNDATIONS  OF  SOCIOLOGY,*’ 
“SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY,’*  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
THE  CENTURY  CO. 
1912 


Copyright,  1911,  by 

The  Century  Co. 

Copyright,  1911,  by  The  Ridgway  Company 

Published,  October,  1911 


TO 

DR.  AMOS  P.  WILDER 

AMERICAN  CONSUL  GENERAL  AT  SHANGHAI 
FRIEND  OF  THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 
AND  ELOQUENT  INTERPRETER  TO  THEM 
OF  THE  BEST  AMERICANISM 
THIS  BOOK 
IS  DEDICATED 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PACE 

China  to  the  Ranging  Eye 3 

Medieval  aspect  of  the  cities — Streets,  water  supply,  light- 
ing and  fuel — Contrast  between  Chinese  and  Japanese  in 
point  of  neatness — Costume,  pailoios  and  pawn-shops — 
River  traffic  and  the  riverine  population — Rural  ties  of 
city-dwellers — Characterizing  influence  of  the  loess — Ruth- 
less destruction  of  the  forests — Calamitous  results  of  de- 
forestation— No  hope  of  improvement  in  our  time — Why 
game  is  so  plentiful — The  Great  Wall — Racial  contrasts 
between  Northern  and  Southern  Chinese. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Race  Fiber  of  the  Chinese 33 

Selection  and  survival  in  China — Relentless  elimination  of 
the  less  fit — Testimony  as  to  the  effect  upon  race  physique 
— Quick  and  sure  recovery  of  the  Chinese  from  grave 
wounds  and  surgical  operations — Their  comparative  free- 
dom from  blood  poisoning,  dysentery,  typhoid  and  small- 
pox— Their  bluntness  of  nerve — Diseases  they  fail  to 
resist — The  Chinese  physique  distinguished,  not  by  a 
primitive  vitality,  but  by  specific  immunities  from  the 
poisons  of  congested  life — Their  toleration  of  noxious 
microbes  unique  and  not  likely  to  be  developed  in  other 
races — Military  and  industrial  significance  of  the  tough- 
ness of  the  Chinese. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Race  Mind  of  the  Chinese 51 

The  Chinese  reflective  rather  than  impulsive — Their  re- 
sponse to  stimuli  slow  but  strong  and  persistent — Their 
self-control,  steadiness  and  reliability— Conservatism  not 
a race  trait,  but  a by-product  of  their  social  history — 
Cause  of  the  early  arrest  of  their  cultural  development — 
Prospect  of  the  early  release  of  the  Chinese  intellect 
from  the  spell  of  the  past — Comparative  ability  of  the 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

yellow  race  and  the  white — Naturalness  and  likableness 
of  the  Chinese — Their  sense  of  humor,  politeness  and  re- 
spect for  age — Why  their  old  men  are  so  often  attractive 
— Mere  borrowing  cannot  put  them  abreast  of  the  West; 
they  must  establish  a new  relation  between  population 
and  opportunities  and  this  will  take  time. 


CHAPTER  IV 

Tiie  Struggle  for  Existence  in  China 70 

Extraordinary  utilization  of  the  soil — Aerial  tillage — 
Made  fields — Why  the  cities  are  scavenged  for  nothing — 
Queer  foods — Strange  gleanings  and  pilferings — Men  kill- 
ing themselves  by  toil — Incredible  poverty  of  the  masses 
— Absence  of  comfort — Cheapening  of  human  life — Why 
the  Chinese  are  so  cohesive  and  clannish — Why  so  utili- 
tarian— No  cause  for  such  a struggle  for  existence  save 
over-population — How  ancestor  worship  whets  the  desire 
for  large  families — Marriage  early  and  universal — Pro- 
creative  recklessness  and  the  appalling  infant  mortality 
resulting  therefrom — Famines  and  migrations — The  Chi- 
nese death-rate  will  be  brought  down  sooner  than  the 
birth-rate — Prospect  of  extreme  overcrowding  and  out- 
tlirust — Chinese  emigration  likely  to  become  a world 
question. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Industrial  Future  of  China 112 

The  military  “yellow  peril”  a bogey — Difficulty  of  reviv- 
ing the  fighting  spirit  in  the  Chinese — The  industrial 
“yellow  peril” — Amazing  cheapness  of  labor  in  China — 
Factories  rapidly  springing  up — But  China  herself  offers 
an  enormous  market  for  their  products — Low  wages  not 
the  same  as  low  labor-cost — Not  enough  capital  to  build 
railways  and  also  expand  manufactures — How  a rapa- 
cious government  paralyzes  the  spirit  of  enterprise — 
Untrustworthiness  of  the  Chinese  in  joint-stock  under- 
takings— Nepotism  and  favoritism,  place-holders  and  sine- 
curists — The  problem  of  the  foreign  expert — Inefficiency 
of  native  management — Oriental  competition  will  be  our 
grandchildren’s  problem. 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  Grapple  With  the  Opium  Evil 139 

Growth  and  extent  of  the  luxury-use  of  opium — Why  the 
opium  pipe  is  so  seductive  to  the  Chinese — Why  society 
has  been  so  slow  to  react  against  the  vice — Motive  be- 


CONTENTS 


hind  the  Anti-Opium  Edict — Provisions  of  the  Edict — 
Economic  difficulties  in  the  way  of  suppressing  opium- 
growing— Tragic  incidents  of  the  fight  on  the  poppy — 
Practical  results  of  the  campaign — Testing  the  mandarins 
for  smoking — Increasing  restrictions  on  the  sale  and  use 
of  opium — The  Foochow  policy — The  impression  on  public 
opinion  and  current  moral  standards — The  agreement 
with  England — The  end  of  opium  in  sight — Lessons  from 
China’s  experience. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Unbinding  the  Women  of  China 174 

Extent,  motives  and  consequences  of  foot-binding — The 
missionaries  initiate  the  fight  against  the  custom — Work 
of  the  Natural-Foot  Society — Support  from  the  Empress 
Dowager — Progress  of  the  reform  in  the  upper  classes — 
Foot-binding  still  wide-spread  and  will  die  out  but  slowly. 
Inferior  position  of  the  female  in  the  family — Chinese 
opinion  of  woman’s  character — Relative  value  of  the  two 
sexes — The  female  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  male — So- 
cial intercourse  organized  for  men — No  mixed  society — 

The  status  of  the  daughter  in  the  family — Rearing  mar- 
riages, child-betrothals  and  parental  match-making — 
Heart-binding  even  more  damaging  to  woman’s  health 
than  foot-binding — The  bride’s  subjection  to  her  mother- 
in-law— Point  of  view  of  a Confucian — The  revolt  of  the 
silk-reelers  against  marriage — Mission-school  girls — Gov- 
ernment education  of  girls — Freer  customs — “Liberty 
girls” — The  effect  of  female  emancipation  upon  the  fu- 
ture of  the  Chinese. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


Christianity  in  China 216 

Lama  worship  compared  with  practical  Christianity — 

The  low  plane  of  Chinese  religions — The  people  saturated 
with  superstition — The  mission  force  in  China — How  the 
Chinese  explain  the  presence  of  the  missionary — Cause  of 
anti-missionary  outbreaks — Changing  attitude  of  the 
mandarins — Contrast  of  aims  between  British  missions 
and  American — New  conceptions  of  mission  work — “Rice 
Christians” — Transforming  power  of  Christianity — What 
conversion  entails— Deceptive  “mass-movements” — What 
the  higher  classes  think — Types  drawn  to  the  Christian 
ideal — The  higher  standing  of  daughter  and  wife  among 
converts — The  indirect  and  unseen  fruits  of  missionary 
labor — Animus  of  critics — Missionary  mistakes  and  prob- 
lems— Reaction  of  missionary  work  upon  native  faiths — 
Future  of  Christianity  in  China. 


X 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IX 


The  Fab  West  of  the  Far  East 260 

Chinese  highways— Signal  towers — Monuments— Cost  of 
carriage — The  currency  problem — Strange  aspect  of  the 
country — Idyllic  harvesting — Havoc  wrought  by  deforesta- 
tion— What  is  lost  when  the  woods  go — Missionary  life 
and  work — Sianfu — The  Pei-lin — Religious  rivalry — The 
Tartar  bannermen — The  new  army — Itinerant  harvesters 
— Fengsiangfu — Mountaineers  of  West  Shensi — “Road  of 
the  Golden  Ox” — Highway  neglect — Characterizing  influ- 
ence of  rice  culture — The  great  road  of  North  Szechuan 
— Packmen — Beauty  of  West-China  types — Ravages  of 
disease — Squalor  and  dreariness  of  life  in  overpeopled 
Szechuan — The  Chengtu  plain — Incredible  productiveness 
— Manure  traps — Irrigation  wheels — PTOgressiveness  of 
Chengtu — What  holds  the  Chinese  back — Why  the  mar- 
tial virtues  vanished — The  hampering  ideals  of  the 
scholar  type — How  to  unleash  the  native  energy  of  the 
race. 


CHAPTER  X 


The  New  Education 310 

Medievalism  of  Chinese  thinking — Ignorance  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  efficiency — Secret  of  the  impotence  of  old  China 
in  coping  with  Western  nations — Characteristics  of  the 
old  education — Motives  to  the  introduction  of  the  West- 
ern branches — The  scope  of  present  education  in  China — 
Inefficient  management  of  the  higher  schools — Sinecurism 
— Poor  use  of  the  foreign  teacher — The  overloaded  course 
of  study — Errors  of  the  Board  of  Education — Traits  of 
the  Chinese  student — Indications  as  to  his  capacity — 

His  lack  of  discipline,  reliance  upon  mass  action,  and 
contempt  for  manual  labor — His  poor  physique  and  neg- 
lect of  physical  training — His  attitude  towards  sports — 

The  burden  of  the  ideographic  language;  efforts  at  sim- 
plification— The  reaction  of  the  educational  revolution  . 
upon  moral  standards — The  golden  opportunity  of  the  Xjl 
mission  colleges.  * 


Index 


347 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The  Cliff  of  the  Thousand  Gods,  on  the  Kialing 

River  in  North  Szechuan Frontispiece 

A pottery — the  walls  built  with  defective  pots 5 

A blocked  path 5 

Typical  ornamental  gateways 10 

House-boats  lining  a river  avenue 15 

Indian  bullock  in  a Quangsi  bullock-cart 20 

A Peking  cart 20 

A half-buried  gate-tower 26 

A silted-up  bridge  in  Shansi.  One  of  the  ultimate  results  of 

deforestation 26 

The  great  wall 31 

A Canton  water-front  crowd 37 

Station  platform  faces 37 

The  river  stairs  up  which  all  the  water  for  Chungking  is  borne  44 

Scene  in  the  Imperial  City,  Peking 49 

Hovel  on  beach  at  Kiukiang.  Over  the  door  the  character  for 

“happiness” 49 

A police  squad  in  Sianfu 56 

Meeting  of  the  first  provincial  assembly  of  the  Province  of 

Fokien,  Foochow,  October,  1909  56 

Altar,  Temple  of  Heaven,  Peking 59 

View  in  the  Temple  grounds  of  the  Ming  Tombs.  Mountains 

near  Peking 59 

A rustic  Endymion  of  West  China 67 

An  old  farmer 67 

Cave  dwelling  of  a coal  miner 76 

Perfected  tillage  of  the  valley  of  an  affluent  of  the  Wei  River  76 

Junk  on  the  Yangtse 81 

Fishing  with  cormorants 81 

What  passes  for  a public  highway 88 

A common  carrier 88 

One  of  the  three  life  boats  that  escorted  us  through  the  gorges  93 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

An  ancient  mariner 93 

Braving  the  Yangtse  flood.  Cliff  swallows’  nests  at  Chung- 
king   100 

A wayside  beggar 107 

Professional  beggar  dinning  to  make  a shopkeeper  contribute  107 

The  railway  police  at  a station 115 

Chinese  officers 115 

Tracking  a junk  through  the  gorges  of  the  Yangtse  . . . 12? 

Working  a Yangtse  junk  with  oar  and  sweep 124 

Cash  equivalent  to  $3.15,  weight  50  lbs 129 

A slow  freight  on  the  Great  Northern  Road 129 

Weighing  silver  ingots  in  a Sianfu  bank 135 

A protected  monument  at  Sianfu 135 

Family  and  home  vanishing  into  the  opium  pipe  ....  144 
South  half  of  the  west  wall  of  Sianfu,  from  the  west  gate  . 147 

City  wall  and  five-story  pagoda,  Canton 147 

Opium  pipes  confiscated  by  the  Anti-Opium  Society  . . .154 

Captives  of  the  lamp  and  pipe 162 

Death  in  the  lamp  of  the  opium  smoker 165 

Burning  of  opium  pipes  and  other  paraphernalia  confiscated 

by  the  Foochow  Anti-Opium  Society  (eighth  time)  . .167 

An  old  Chinese  garden  at  Taiku 186 

Flower  pagoda.  Canton 186 

One  of  the  south  gates  into  the  Tartar  City,  Peking  . . .191 

Temple  of  Five  Hundred  Genii,  Canton 191 

Gate  between  two  provinces  in  West  China 200 

Scenic  archway  at  the  crest  of  a mountain  pass 200 

No  chance  for  them 208 

Joss  house,  Foochow  and  Baby  Tower  where  girl  infants  are 

thrown  when  not  wanted 208 

One  of  two  hundred  day  schools  organized  by  a Foochow  mis- 
sionary   213 

A bride’s  canopy,  Peking 213 

High  altar  of  a Buddhist  temple  of  the  Kushan  monastery  . 221 

Temple  in  a gorge,  Kushan  monastery 221 

A wealthy  Shansi  family  of  foreignizing  tendencies  . . . 226 

Monks  of  Kushan  Monastery 226 

A noble  type  of  Christian 232 

A distinguished  pastor  whose  face  reveals  the  high  possibili- 
ties of  his  race 232 

How  a road  wears  down  into  the  loess 237 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Buddhist  monks  on  pilgrimage  to  Wutaishan  on  the  Five  Sa- 
cred Mountains 237 

Temple  in  Canton 243 

An  Alpine  road  in  western  Shensi 248 

Monastery  on  the  “Little  Orphan”  isle  on  the  Yangtse  . . 248 
A Cliff  shrine  near  the  northern  frontier  of  Szechuan  . . 254 

Looking  south  from  the  Bell  Tower,  Sianfu 263 

The  east  gate  of  Taiyuanfu,  showing  macadamized  street  . 263 
An  ancient  ornamental  gate  over  the  Southwestern  Highroad  269 
One  of  the  ancient  brick  signal-towers  occurring  every  three 
miles  on  the  Southwestern  highroad  uniting  Peking  with 

the  remote  provinces 269 

The  type  of  public  monument  universal  in  Shansi  . . . .278 

Grave-stones,  Chihli 278 

Cedars  on  the  main  road  across  Northern  Szechuan.  Each 

tree  is  protected  by  a tablet  warning  against  depredation  283 
Patriarch  on  the  highway.  Willows  line  the  road  most  of  the 

way  from  Tungkwan  to  Sianfu 283 

Ferrying  across  the  Yellow  River 292 

Houses  with  brick  stoops  and  benches,  showing  resort  to  mud 

and  brick  in  a timberless  country 292 

Noontide  in  a street  of  Paisiang 300 

In  the  valley  of  the  Wei 300 

A horseshoe  tomb  in  a South  China  hillside 305 

Coffins  in  rest-house  waiting  for  the  lucky  day 305 

Outlook  tower  of  the  Temple  of  the  Flowing  Waters  in  South- 
ern Shensi.  Founded  about  200  B.  C 313 

Wayfarers  resting  in  the  shade  of  a tree  protected  by  the 

monuments  and  the  temple 320 

Traffic  through  the  loess  en  route  to  the  distant  railroad  . . 320 

The  seething  whirlpools  in  the  gorges  of  the  Yangtse  . . . 329 

In  the  gorges  of  the  Upper  Yangtse 329 


PREFACE 


The  old  China  hand  is  quite  sure  one  can  get 
nowhere  by  a diligent  half  year  of  travel  and  in- 
quiry in  the  Far  East.  “I  have  been  here  thirty 
years,”  says  the  Chief  Engineer,  ‘‘and  the  longer 
I stay  the  less  I understand  these  people.”  “I 
thought  I had  made  them  out  after  I had  lived 
here  a couple  of  years,”  says  the  Trader,  “but  the 
longer  I am  here  the  queerer  they  seem.”  No 
traveler,  if  he  consults  the  old  treaty-port  resi- 
dents, will  ever  find  courage  to  write  anything 
about  the  Chinese. 

The  fact  is,  to  the  traveler  who  appreciates  how 
different  is  the  mental  horizon  that  goes  with  an- 
other stage  of  culture  or  another  type  of  social 
organization  than  his  own,  the  Chinese  do  not 
seem  very  puzzling.  Allowing  for  difference  in 
outfit  of  knowledge  and  fundamental  ideas,  they 
act  much  as  we  should  act  under  their  circum- 
stances. The  theory,  dear  to  literary  inter- 
preters of  the  Orient,  that  owing  to  diversity  in 


XV 


XVI 


PREFACE 


mental  constitution  the  yellow  man  and  the  white 
man  can  never  comprehend  or  sympathize  with 
one  another,  will  appeal  little  to  those  who  from 
their  comparative  study  of  societies  have  gleaned 
some  notion  of  what  naturally  follows  from  isola- 
tion, the  acute  struggle  for  existence,  ancestor 
worship,  patriarchal  authority,  the  subjection  of 
women,  the  decline  of  militancy,  and  the  ascend- 
ancy of  scholars. 

Edward  Alsworth  Ross. 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


THE 

CHANGING  CHINESE 


CHAPTER  I 
CHINA  to  the  ranging  eye 

CHINA  is  the  European  Middle  Ages  made 
visible.  All  the  cities  are  walled  and  the 
walls  and  gates  have  been  kept  in  repair  with  an 
eye  to  their  effectiveness.  The  mandarin  has  his 
headquarters  only  in  a walled  fortress-city  and 
to  its  shelter  he  retires  when  a sudden  tempest 
of  rebellion  vexes  the  peace  of  his  district. 

The  streets  of  the  cities  are  narrow,  crooked, 
poorly-paved,  filthy  and  malodorous.  In  North 
China  they  admit  the  circulation  of  the  heavy 
springless  carts  by  which  alone  passengers  are 
carried ; but,  wherever  rice  is  cultivated,  the  mule 
is  eliminated  and  the  streets  are  adapted  only 
to  the  circulation  of  wheel-barrows  and  pedes- 
trians. There  is  little  or  no  assertion  of  the 
public  interest  in  the  highway  and  hence  private 
interests  close  in  upon  the  street  and  well-nigh 
block  it.  The  shopkeeper  builds  his  counter  in 
front  of  his  lot  line ; the  stalls  line  the  street  with 
their  crates  and  baskets;  the  artisans  overflow 
into  it  with  their  workbenches,  and  the  final 
result  is  that  the  traffic  filters  painfully  through 

3 


4 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


a six-foot  passage  which  would  be  yet  more  en- 
croached on  but  for  the  fact  that  the  officials  in- 
sist on  there  being  room  left  for  their  sedan  chairs 
to  pass  each  other. 

The  straitened  streets  are  always  crowded 
and  give  the  traveler  the  impression  of  a high 
density  and  an  enormous  population.  But  the 
buildings  are  chiefly  one  story  in  height  and,  with 
the  exception  of  Peking,  Chinese  cities  cover 
no  very  great  area.  For  literary  effect  their 
population  has  been  recklessly  exaggerated  and, 
in  the  absence  of  reliable  statistics,  every  trav- 
eler has  felt  at  liberty  to  adopt  the  highest  guess. 

Until  recently  there  was  no  force  in  the  cities 
to  maintain  public  order.  Now,  khaki-clad  po- 
licemen, club  in  hand,  patrol  the  streets,  but  their 
efficiency  in  time  of  tumult  is  by  no  means  vin- 
dicated. A slouching,  bare-foot,  mild-faced  gen- 
darme such  as  you  see  in  Canton  is  by  no  means 
an  awe-inspiring  embodiment  of  the  majesty  of 
the  law. 

There  is  no  common  supply  of  water.  When 
a city  lies  by  a river  the  raw  river  water  is  borne 
about  to  the  houses  by  regular  water-carriers 
and  the  livelong  day  the  river-stairs  are  wet 
from  the  drip  of  buckets.  When  the  water  is 
too  thick  it  is  partially  clarified  by  stirring  it 
with  a perforated  joint  of  bamboo  containing 
some  pieces  of  alum. 

There  is  no  public  lighting  and  after  nightfall 
the  streets  are  dark,  forbidding,  and  little  fre- 
quented. Until  kerosene  began  to  penetrate  the 


A pottery  — the  walls  built  with  defective  pots 


A blocked  path 


CHINA  TO  THE  RANGING  EYE 


7 


Empire  the  common  source  of  light  was  a candle 
in  a paper  lantern  or  a cotton  wick  lighted 
in  an  open  cup  of  peanut  oil.  Owing  to  the  lack 
of  a good  illuminant  the  bulk  of  the  people  retire 
with  the  fowls  and  rise  with  the  sun.  By  mak- 
ing the  evening  of  some  account  for  reading  or 
for  family  intercourse,  kerdsene  has  been  a great 
boon  to  domestic  life. 

Fuel  is  scarce  and  is  sold  in  neat  bundles  of 
kindling  size.  Down  the  West  River  ply  innu- 
merable boats  corded  high  with  firewood  floating 
down  to  Canton  and  Hong  Kong.  Higher  and 
higher  the  tree  destruction  extends  and  farther 
and  farther  does  the  axman  work  his  way  from 
the  waterways.  Chaff  and  straw,  twigs  and 
leaves  and  litter  are  burned  in  the  big  brick  bed- 
steads that  warm  the  sleepers  on  winter  nights 
and  under  the  big  shallow  copper  vessels  set  in 
the  low  brick  or  mud  stoves.  Fuel  is  econo- 
mized and  household  economy  simplified  among 
the  poor  by  the  custom  of  relying  largely  on  the 
food  cooked  and  vended  in  the  street.  The  port- 
able restaurant  is  in  high  favor,  for  our  preju- 
dice against  food  cooked  outside  the  home  is  a 
luxury  the  common  people  cannot  afford  to  in- 
dulge in. 

Proper  chimneys  are  wanting  and  wherever 
cooking  goes  on  the  walls  are  black  with  the 
smoke  that  is  left  to  escape  as  it  will.  Chinese 
interiors  are  apt  to  be  dark  for,  in  the  absence 
of  window  glass,  the  only  means  of  letting  in 
light  without  weather  is  by  pasting  paper  on 


8 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


lattice.  The  floors  are  dirt,  brick  or  tile,  the 
roof  tile  or  thatch.  To  the  passer-by  private 
ease  and  luxury  are  little  in  evidence.  If  a man 
has  house  and  grounds  of  beauty,  a high  wall 
hides  them  from  the  gaze  of  the  public.  Open 
lawns  and  gardens  are  never  seen  and  there  is 
no  greenery  accessible  to  the  public  unless  it  be 
the  grove  of  an  occasional  temple. 

In  the  houses  of  the  wealthy,  although  there 
is  much  beauty  to  be  seen,  the  standard  of  neat- 
ness is  not  ours.  Cobwebs,  dust,  or  incipient 
dilapidation  do  not  excite  the  servant  or  mortify 
the  proprietor.  While  a mansion  may  contain 
priceless  porcelains  and  display  embroideries 
and  furniture  that  would  be  pronounced  beauti- 
ful the  world  over,  in  general,  the  interiors 
wrought  by  the  Chinese  artisan  do  not  compare 
in  finish  with  those  of  his  Western  confrere. 

Most  striking  is  the  contrast  between  China 
and  Japan  in  respect  to  neatness.  The  Chinese 
seem  neglectful,  and  ignorant  of  the  art  of  care- 
taking and  repair.  They  have  never  acted  on 
the  maxim  “a  stitch  in  time  saves  nine.”  They 
prefer  to  build  new  rather  than  to  keep  up  the 
old.  With  “China”  rise  recollections  of  tat- 
tered mat  sails  catching  the  wind  like  a sieve, 
leaning  and  crumbling  walls,  sagging  temple 
roofs,  moss-grown  loosened  tiles,  cracked  pave- 
ments, ragged  thatch,  rotting  ceiling-cloths,  rick- 
ety screens  and  paved  roads  with  their  stones 
tilting  and  broken.  In  Japan  everything  looks 
spick  and  span — thatch  well  trimmed,  walls  well 


Typical  ornamental  gateways 

A standard  art  form  that  so  obsesses  the  people  they  can  think  of  no  other  form  of  beautification.  Approaching  a rich  town  on 
theChengtu  Plain,  the  road  would  pass  under  seven  or  eight  of  these  in  the  course  of  a mile.  The  establishment  of  a philanthropy 
instead  of  a monumental  gateway  never  occurs  to  a Chinese  Dives 


CHINA  TO  THE  RANGING  EYE  11 


washed,  mats  bright,  roads  in  good  repair,  piles 
of  rubbish  nowhere  to  be  seen.  Nothing  have  I 
seen  to  compare  with  it  save  in  Holland,  Nor- 
mandy and  parts  of  England.  After  the  memor- 
able inundations  of  August,  1910,  the  celerity  with 
which  these  wonderful  Japanese  cleaned  up  and 
set  things  in  order  was  marvelous. 

About  Japanese  cottages  you  see  none  of  the 
piles  of  rubbish,  muck  heaps,  dirty  pools,  mud 
holes,  sagging  roofs,  toppling  walls,  rotting 
thatch  or  loose  stones  one  notices  about  most 
Chinese  villages.  When  a roof,  wall,  fence, 
hedge,  dam,  bridge,  or  path  is  damaged,  it  is  re- 
paired at  once.  Among  us,  only  New  England 
and  places  settled  from  Yankeedom  can  compare 
with  Japan  in  tidiness. 

No  memory  of  China  is  more  haunting  than 
that  of  the  everlasting  blue  cotton  garments. 
The  common  people  wear  coarse  deep-blue 
“nankeen.”  The  gala  dress  is  a cotton  gown  of 
a delicate  bird’s-egg  blue  or  a silk  jacket  of  rich 
hue.  In  cold  weather  the  poor  wear  quilted  cot- 
ton, while  the  well-to-do  keep  themselves  warm 
with  fur-lined  garments  of  silk.  A general  adop- 
tion of  Western  dress  would  bring  on  an  economic 
crisis,  for  the  Chinese  are  not  ready  to  rear 
sheep  on  a great  scale  and  it  will  be  long  before 
they  can  supply  themselves  with  wool.  The 
Chinese  jacket  is  fortunate  in  opening  at  the 
side  instead  of  at  the  front.  When  the  winter 
winds  of  Peking  gnaw  at  you  with  Siberian 
teeth,  you  realize  how  stupid  is  our  Western  way 


12 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


of  cutting  a notch  in  front  right  down  through 
overcoat,  coat  and  vest,  apparently  in  order  that 
the  cold  may  do  its  worst  to  the  tender  throat  and 
chest.  On  seeing  the  sensible  Chinaman  bring 
his  coat  squarely  across  his  front  and  fasten  it 
on  his  shoulder,  you  feel  like  an  exposed  totem- 
worshiper. 

Wherever  stone  is  to  he  had,  along  or  spanning 
the  main  roads  are  to  be  seen  the  memorial  arches 
known  as  pailows  erected  by  imperial  permission 
to  commemorate  some  deed  or  life  of  extraor- 
dinary merit.  It  is  significant  that  when  they 
proclaim  achievement,  it  is  that  of  the  scholar, 
not  that  of  the  warrior.  They  enclose  a central 
gateway  flanked  by  two  and  sometimes  by  four 
smaller  gateways,  and  comform  closely  to  a few 
standard  types,  all  of  real  beauty.  As  a well- 
built  pailow  lasts  for  centuries  and  as  the  erection 
of  such  a memorial  is  one  of  the  first  forms  of 
outlay  that  occur  to  a philanthropic  Chinaman, 
they  accumulate,  and  sometimes  the  road  near 
cities  is  lined  with  these  structures  until  one 
wearies  of  so  much  repetition  of  the  same  thing 
however  beautiful. 

In  South-China  cities  a tall  moat-girt  building, 
six  or  seven  stories  high,  flat-topped  and  with 
small  windows  high  up,  towers  over  the  mean 
houses  like  a medieval  donjon  keep.  It  is  the 
pawnshop,  which  also  serves  the  public  as  bank 
and  safety  deposit  vault  for  the  reason  that  it 
can  for  some  hours  bid  defiance  to  any  robber  at- 
tack. In  the  larger  centers  sumptuous  guild- 


CHINA  TO  THE  RANGING  EYE  13 


halls  are  to  be  seen  and  the  highly  embellished 
clnb-honses  of  the  men  from  other  provinces,  who 
feel  themselves  as  truly  strangers  in  a strange 
land  as  did  the  Flemish  or  the  Hansa  traders  in 
the  London  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Some- 
times men  from  different  provinces  join  in  es- 
tablishing such  headquarters  and  I recall  in 
Sianfu  the  stately  “Tri-province  Club”  accom- 
modating strangers  from  Szechuan,  Shansi  and 
Honan. 

In  the  absence  of  good  roads  and  draft  animals 
the  utmost  use  has  been  made  of  the  countless 
waterways  and  there  are  probably  as  many  boats 
in  China  as  in  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  No- 
where else  are  there  such  clever  river-people,  no- 
where else  is  there  so  lavish  an  application  of 
man-muscle  to  water  movement.  The  rivers  are 
alive  with  junks  propelled  by  rowers  who  oc- 
cupy the  forward  deck  and  stand  as  they  ply 
the  oar.  Sixteen  or  eighteen  rowers  man  the 
bigger  boats  and  as,  bare  to  the  waist,  they  forge 
by  in  rhythmic  swing  chanting  their  song  of  labor 
the  effect  is  fine.  Save  when  there  is  a stiff 
breeze  to  sail  with,  the  up-river  junks  are  towed 
along  the  bank,  and,  as  no  tow-path  has  ever 
been  built,  the  waste  of  toil  in  scrambling  along 
slippery  banks,  clambering  over  rocks  or  creep- 
ing along  narrow  ledges  with  the  tow-rope  is 
distressing  to  behold. 

In  the  South  population  is  forced  from  the  land 
onto  the  water  and  myriads  pass  their  lives  in 
sampans  and  house-boats.  In  good  weather  these 


14 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


poor  families,  living  as  it  were  in  a single  small 
room  with  a porch  at  either  end,  seem  as  happy  as 
people  anywhere.  There  is  no  landlord  to 
threaten  eviction,  no  employer  to  grind  them 
down,  no  foreman  to  speed  them  up.  There  is 
infinite  variety  in  the  stirring  life  of  river  and 
foreshore  that  passes  under  their  eyes;  the  bab- 
ble and  chatter  never  cease  and  no  one  need  ever 
feel  lonely.  The  tiny  home  can  be  kept  with  a 
Dutch  cleanliness  for  water  is  always  to  be  had 
with  a sweep  of  the  arm.  They  pay  no  rent  and 
can  change  neighbors,  residence,  scenery  or  oc- 
cupation when  they  please.  No  people  is  more 
natural,  animated  and  self-expressive,  for  they 
have  simplified  life  without  impoverishing  it  and 
have  remained  free  even  under  the  very  harrow- 
tooth  of  poverty. 

Their  children,  little  river  Arabs,  have  their 
wits  sharpened  early  and  not  for  long  is  the  baby 
tied  to  a sealed  empty  jar  that  by  floating  will 
mark  his  location  in  case  he  tumbles  into  the 
water.  The  year-old  child  knows  how  to  take 
care  of  himself.  The  tot  of  three  or  four  can 
handle  the  oar  or  the  pole  and  is  as  sharp  as  our 
boys  of  six  or  seven.  Nothing  escapes  their  pry- 
ing black  eyes  and  they  can  coax  coppers  out  of 
you  as  prettily  as  any  Italian  bambino. 

Although  the  gates  of  the  Chinese  city  close 
at  night,  the  city  is  by  no  means  so  cut  off  from 
the  open  country  as  with  us.  The  man  in  the 
street  never  quite  lets  go  of  his  kinsfolk  in  the 
rural  village.  When,  a little  while  ago,  ship 


House-boats  lining  a river  avenue 


CHINA  TO  THE  RANGING  EYE  17 


building  and  repairing  became  dull  in  Hong 
Kong,  there  was  no  hanging  of  the  unemployed 
about  the  wharves,  not  because  they  had  found 
other  jobs,  but  because  most  of  them  had  dis- 
persed to  their  ancestral  seats  in  the  country, 
there  to  work  on  the  old  place  till  times  im- 
proved. The  man’s  family  always  give  him  a 
chance  and  there  is  rice  in  the  pot  for  him  and 
his.  Nor  is  this  tie  with  the  mother-stem  al- 
lowed to  decay  with  the  lapse  of  time.  The  suc- 
cessful merchant  registers  his  male  children  in 
the  ancestral  temple  of  his  clan,  contributes  to 
its  upkeep  and  is  entitled  to  his  portion  of  roast- 
pork  on  the  occasion  of  the  yearly  clan  festival, 
visits  the  old  home  during  the  holidays,  sends 
money  back  so  that  his  people  may  buy  more 
land,  takes  his  children  out  so  they  will  get  ac- 
quainted and  perhaps  lets  them  pass  their  boy- 
hood in  the  ancestral  village  so  that,  after  he  is 
gone,  they  will  love  and  cherish  the  old  tie  to  the 
soil.  By  such  means,  provided  war  or  flood  or 
famine  has  not  uprooted  the  stock,  a city  family, 
even  after  the  lapse  of  generations,  retains  a con- 
nection with  its  rural  kindred.  A Chinese  city 
is  not,  therefore,  a genuine  civic  community  but 
rather  an  agglomeration  of  persons  who  are 
members  of  numerous  little  groups.  No  doubt 
the  establishment  of  municipal  councils  and  the 
grant  to  the  citizens  of  control  over  their  com- 
mon affairs  will  tend  to  create  a community- 
spirit  and  weaken  the  feeling  for  the  rural  clan. 

The  mementos  of  the  departed  are  so  promi- 


18 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


nent  that  one  might  hesitate  to  say  whether 
China  belongs  to  the  living  or  to  the  dead.  The 
dead  have  been  interred  in  burial  places  of 
families  or  clans,  not  collected  into  cemeteries. 
In  the  vicinity  of  the  cities  the  landscape  is 
pustuled  with  graves  and  the  dedication  of  the 
land  to  this  pious  use  makes  very  difficult  an 
extra-mural  growth  of  the  city.  The  campus  of 
the  Canton  Christian  College  represents  three 
hundred  and  sixty  separate  conveyances  and  is 
still  dotted  with  grave  sites,  the  owners  of  which 
refuse  to  sell.  “Rest  houses”  are  provided 
where  encoffined  bodies  are  kept  for  months, 
sometimes  for  years,  until  a lucky  day  and  place 
for  interment  are  discovered  by  the  geomancer. 
The  Chinese  coffin  is  put  together  not  of  boards 
but  of  split  hollowed  logs  and  this  pious  hut  ex- 
travagant custom  has  something  to  answer  for 
in  the  denuded  appearance  of  the  country. 

Some  of  the  most  characteristic  impressions  of 
China  are  connected  with  the  great  loess  deposit 
that  mantles  the  larger  part  of  North  China  to 
the  depth  sometimes  of  hundreds  of  feet.  Geol- 
ogists interpret  it  as  an  accumulation  of  the  dust 
that  the  prevailing  winds  blowing  from  the  arid  in- 
terior of  Asia  have  sifted  over  the  country.  It  is 
unstratified,  splits  vertically,  contains  land  shells 
but  no  marine  shells,  and  shows  vertical  tubes 
as  big  as  a needle  which  are  supposed  to  have 
been  left  by  the  decay  of  the  roots  of  the  grass 
that  clothed  the  surface  as  the  deposit  slowly 
built  up.  Where  this  mantle  of  dust  fell  on  the 


A Peking  cart 


CHINA  TO  THE  RANGING  EYE  21 


mountains  it  was  soon  worn  thin  so  that  the 
bones  of  the  land  protrude.  But  what  has  been 
washed  from  the  steeper  slopes  has  settled  about 
their  base,  filled  up  the  lesser  depressions  and 
softened  the  original  outlines  of  the  country. 

The  streams  have  cut  down  through  the  loess 
and  are  all  deeply  stained  with  its  characteristic 
brown-yellow.  Sweeping  along  so  much  of  it  they 
cannot  maintain  a free  channel  for  heavy  navi- 
gation and  after  they  debouch  upon  the  plain  they 
are  prone  to  choke  their  bed  and  shift  their 
course.  It  is  the  loess  that  gives  us  Yellow 
River,  Yellow  Sea,  Yellow  Emperor  (Hwangti) 
and  makes  yellow  the  imperial  color.  The  north- 
ern half  of  the  Peking-Hankow  Railway  trav- 
erses a vast  yellow  universe  with  scarcely  a 
stone,  hill  or  tree.  The  soil  and  the  streams  are 
yellow,  the  flat-roofed  houses  are  yellow,  the 
walls  of  cities  and  villages  are  yellow.  The  air 
is  yellow  with  dust,  the  vegetation  is  coated  with 
it,  the  yellow  people  and  their  clothing  are  pow- 
dered with  it,  and  everything  melts  into  the  most 
monochrome  countryside  peopled  by  civilized 
men. 

The  loess  slices  like  cheese  and  after  three  or 
four  years  the  marks  of  pick  and  spade  are  still 
plain  on  the  sides  of  the  railway  cuttings.  Hence 
most  of  the  people  in  the  mountains  house  them- 
selves simply  by  digging  a cave  in  a bank  which 
when  plastered  gives  them  a clean  dry  habita- 
tion, warm  in  winter,  cool  in  summer,  and  ex- 
cellent in  everything  save  ventilation.  Some  of 


22 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


these  have  two  or  three  stories,  boast  framed 
windows  and  doorways,  and  are  well  furnished. 
It  is  rather  startling1,  however,  to  look  over  a 
broad  flat  country  checkered  with  fields  in  a 
state  of  high  cultivation  and  see  no  roads, 
houses,  people  or  domestic  animals.  The  roads 
have  cut  their  way  into  the  loess  and  run  at  the 
bottom  of  canyons  sometimes  seventy  or  eighty 
feet  deep.  In  the  cliffs  that  line  the  roads  and 
watercourses  the  viewless  population  have  carved 
their  dwellings  and  stables. 

In  China  the  notion  of  an  undistributed  public 
good  distinct  from  private  goods  has  never  es- 
tablished itself  in  the  general  mind.  The  State 
has  been  tribute-taker  rather  than  guardian  of 
the  general  welfare,  so  the  community  is  sacri- 
ficed to  the  individual,  the  public  to  the  local 
group,  and  posterity  to  the  living.  Along  the 
Wei  River  great  quantities  of  quick-growing  trees 
are  scattered  amid  the  crops  while  the  mountains 
two  or  three  miles  away  are  denuded.  Instead 
of  growing  their  wood  and  fuel  on  the  rough 
land  which  is  good  for  nothing  else,  they  grow 
it  in  their  fields  to  the  detriment  of  their  crops 
because,  in  the  absence  of  public  administration, 
the  mountains  are  a no-man’s  land  which  all  may 
ravage  and  abuse. 

The  destruction  of  the  remaining  forests  goes 
on  apace  for  the  officials  are  utterly  indifferent. 
In  North  Chihli  near  Jeliol  there  has  recently 
been  a great  butchery  of  what  was  but  a few  years 
ago  a noble  forest.  One  finds  enough  fine 


CHINA  TO  THE  RANGING  EYE  23 


straight  poles  of  larch  and  pine  piled  up  to  string 
a telegraph  -wire  a thousand  miles.  There  they 
lie  rotting  while  crooked  willow  carries  the  wires. 
No  doubt  some  official  got  his  “squeeze”  out  of 
the  cutting  of  the  trees  for  these  poles,  and  now 
nobody  cares  what  becomes  of  them. 

On  the  Kowloon  hills  opposite  Hong  Kong  there 
are  frightful  evidences  of  erosion  due  to  deforesta- 
tion several  hundred  years  ago.  The  loose  soil 
has  been  washed  away  till  the  country  is  knobbed 
or  blistered  with  great  granite  boulders.  North 
of  the  Gulf  of  Tonkin  I am  told  that  not  a tree 
is  to  be  seen  and  the  surviving  balks  between  the 
fields  show  that  much  land  once  cultivated  has 
become  waste.  Erosion  stripped  the  soil  down 
to  the  clay  and  the  farmers  had  to  abandon  the 
land.  The  denuded  hill-slopes  facing  the  West 
River  have  been  torn  and  gullied  till  the  red 
earth  glows  through  the  vegetation  like  blood. 
The  coast  hills  of  Fokien  have  lost  most  of  their 
soil  and  show  little  but  rocks.  Fuel-gatherers 
constantly  climb  about  them  grubbing  up  shrubs 
and  pulling  up  the  grass.  No  one  tries  to  grow 
trees  unless  he  can  live  in  their  midst  and  so 
prevent  their  being  stolen.  The  higher  ranges 
further  back  have  been  stripped  of  their  trees 
but  not  of  their  soil  for,  owing  to  the  greater 
rainfall  they  receive,  a verdant  growth  quickly 
springs  up  and  protects  their  flanks. 

Deep-gullied  plateaus  of  the  loess,  guttered 
hillsides,  choked  water-courses,  silted-up  bridges, 
sterilized  bottom  lands,  bankless  wandering 


24 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


rivers,  dyked  torrents  that  have  built  up  their 
beds  till  they  meander  at  the  level  of  the  tree- 
tops,  mountain  brooks  as  thick  as  pea  soup,  tes- 
tify to  the  changes  wrought  once  the  reckless  ax 
has  let  loose  the  force  of  running  water  to  re- 
sculpture the  landscape.  No  river  could  drain 
the  friable  loess  of  Northwest  China  without 
bringing  down  great  quantities  of  soil  that  would 
raise  its  bed  and  make  it  a menace  in  its  lower, 
sluggish  course.  But  if  the  Yellow  River  is  more 
and  more  “China’s  Sorrow”  as  the  centuries 
tick  off,  it  is  because  the  rain  runs  off  the  de- 
forested slopes  of  its  drainage  basin  like  water 
off  the  roof  of  a house  and  in  the  wet  season 
rolls  down  terrible  floods  which  hurst  the  im- 
mense and  costly  embankments,  spread  like  a lake 
over  the  plain  and  drown  whole  populations. 

The  British  in  Kowloon  and  the  Germans  in  Kia- 
ochow  have  made  beginnings  in  re-afforestation; 
but,  save  for  some  plantations  for  growing  sleep- 
ers which  the  Peking-Hankow  Railway  Company 
has  made  on  the  flanks  of  the  mountains  in  North- 
ern Hupeh,  one  sees  no  restoration  by  the  Chinese 
themselves.  If  the  Chinese  had  not  so  early  rid 
themselves  of  feudalism  the  country  might  have 
profited,  as  did  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages, 
by  the  harsh  forest  laws  and  the  vast  wooded 
preserves  of  a hunting  nobility;  or  a policy  of 
national  conservation  would  have  availed  if  be- 
gun five  centuries  ago.  Now,  however,  nothing 
will  meet  the  dire  need  of  China  hut  a long 
scientific,  recuperative  treatment  far  more  ex- 


A half -buried  gate-tower 


A silted-up  bridge  in  Shansi.  One  of  the  ultimate 
results  of  deforestation 


CHINA  TO  THE  RANGING  EYE  27 


tensive  and  thorougli-going  than  even  the  most 
enlightened  European  governments  have  at- 
tempted. Since  that  is  clearly  beyond  the  fore- 
sight and  administrative  capacity  of  this  genera- 
tion of  Chinese,  the  slow  physical  deterioration 
of  the  country  may  be  expected  to  continue  dur- 
ing our  time. 

Despite  absence  of  game  protection,  China  con- 
tains far  more  wild  life  than  one  would  expect. 
Tigers  and  leopards  abound  in  some  parts,  ducks 
swirl  above  the  Yangtse  in  flocks  of  ten  thou- 
sand and  many  foreigners  find  royal  sport  for 
the  hunter  within  reach  of  the  treaty  ports.  One 
reason  for  so  much  game  in  an  old  thickly-set- 
tled country  is  that  Chinese  gentlemen  have  had 
no  taste  for  the  chase,  and  delight  in  the  de- 
struction of  life  is  not  general;  another  is  that 
the  government  puts  so  many  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  people  obtaining  firearms  that  they 
lack  the  means  of  killing  game. 

The  Great  Wall  is  undoubtedly  the  grandest 
and  most  impressive  handiwork  of  man.  Be- 
side its  colossal  bulk  our  boasted  railway  em- 
bankments and  tunnels  seem  the  work  of  pyg- 
mies. Save  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt  and  the 
Panama  Canal  there  is  no  prodigy  of  toil  to  be 
mentioned  in  the  same  breath  with  it.  The  brick 
and  stone  in  every  fifty  miles  of  this  wall  would 
rear  a pyramid  higher  than  that  of  Cheops — and 
there  are  at  least  seventeen  hundred  miles  of 
it!  At  Nankow  Pass  the  wall  is  wide  enough 
for  seven  or  eight  men  to  march  abreast  along  its 


28 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


top,  twenty  feet  high,  faced  with  hewn  stone, 
battlemented,  and  is  strengthened  every  forty  or 
fifty  rods  by  huge  towers  ten  yards  square  in- 
side. It  clambers  boldly  up  the  steepest  slopes, 
creeps  along  the  sheer  precipices,  and  springs 
from  height  to  height  leaving  a square  crenel- 
lated tower  on  every  crown.  It  follows  the  comb 
of  the  mountains  in  order  that  the  ground  may 
slope  from  it  both  ways.  It  zigzags  from  crest 
to  crest,  dips  into  ravines  and  reappears  mount- 
ing the  range  beyond,  so  that  it  is  seen  in  frag- 
ments, the  linking  parts  being  hidden  in  the  de- 
files. For  perhaps  thirty  miles  the  eye  follows 
this  serpent  in  stone  now  streaking  up  the  slopes, 
now  passing  across  the  line  of  vision  defined 
against  the  black  of  the  mountains  beyond,  now 
cutting  the  afternoon  sky  with  its  battlements 
as  it  follows  some  distant  ridge.  To  the  north 
the  mountains  drop  away  into  foothills  each 
crowned  with  its  watch-tower.  Then  a plain, 
another  range  of  mountains  with  another  wall, 
and,  beyond,  the  bleak  wind-swept  plateau  of 
Mongolia. 

As  one  looked  one  could  in  imagination  see 
snag-toothed,  thin-mustached  nomads,  in  sheep- 
skin coats  with  the  fleece  turned  inside,  halt  on 
their  shaggy  ponies,  rest  the  butts  of  their  spears 
on  the  ground  and  search  with  restless  disappoint- 
ed eyes  for  some  weak  spot  in  this  wall  that  had 
never  barred  the  path  of  their  plundering  fore- 
fathers. And  no  doubt  the  parapet  of  the  wall 
was  lined  with  Chinese  soldiers  in  blue  nankeen 


CHINA  TO  THE  RANGING  EYE  29 


who  jeered  at  the  discomfiture  of  their  dreaded 
hereditary  enemies  and  shot  arrows  at  them 
through  the  slits  in  the  stone.  Now,  thanks  to 
Buddhism  and  the  Lama  priests  who  have  taken 
all  the  fierceness  out  of  the  Mongols,  the  wall  is 
useless.  Endless  traffic  streams  unafraid  through 
the  gateway  at  the  pass.  Mile-long  trains  of 
great  shaggy  two-humped  camels  stalk  by,  bring- 
ing in  wool  and  hides  and  timber  or  taking  out 
brick  tea,  matches  and  kerosene. 

That  the  Chinese  are  more  homogeneous  in 
civilization  than  in  blood  comes  out  clearly  when 
one  compares  the  Southern  Chinese  with  the 
Northern.  The  people  of  Chihli,  in  which  Peking 
is  situated,  must  be  at  least  six  inches  taller  than 
the  Cantonese  and  the  Hakkas.  They  show  the 
effect  of  the  series  of  admixtures  of  Tartar  blood, 
for  they  are  big  sturdy  people  with  a fresh 
color  and  a frank  eye.  The  railway  guards  look 
and  act  like  green,  honest,  good-natured  American 
lads  fresh  from  the  farm.  They  are  deliberate 
of  movement  and  slow  in  mental  processes,  but 
make  good  friends  and  good  fighters.  In  the 
South  people  are  smaller,  yellower,  less  manly 
and  less  courageous.  The  ugly,  wrinkled,  cat- 
like wily  Chinamen  of  dime-novel  fiction  come 
from  the  South.  They  are  quicker  of  wit  than 
the  Northerners  but  harder  for  us  to  understand 
or  trust.  Upon  the  Canton  type  is  built  the  cher- 
ished literary  legend  of  the  unfathomableness  and 
superhuman  craftiness  of  the  Oriental. 

The  Northern  Chinese,  although  less  fertile  in 


30 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


ideas,  appear  to  be  steadier  in  character  than  the 
Cantonese  and  more  faithful.  They  are  truer  to 
their  friends  and,  owing  to  their  mutual  trust, 
they  combine  better.  For  this  reason  they  may 
be  able  to  work  the  joint-stock  company  better 
than  the  keen,  clever  merchants  of  the  South  and 
hence  take  the  lead  in  industrial  development. 


CHAPTER  H 


THE  RACE  FIBER  OF  THE  CHINESE 

OUT  of  ten  children  born  among  us  three, 
normally  the  weakest  three,  will  fail  to  grow 
up.  Out  of  ten  children  bom  in  China  these 
weakest  three  will  die  and  probably  five  more  be- 
sides. The  difference  is  owing  to  the  hardships 
that  infant  life  meets  with  among  the  Chinese. 
If  at  birth  the  white  infants  and  the  yellow  in- 
fants are  equal  in  stamina,  the  two  surviving 
Chinese  ought  to  possess  greater  vitality  of  con- 
stitution than  the  seven  surviving  whites.  For 
of  these  seven  the  five  that  would  infallibly 
have  perished  under  Oriental  conditions  of  life 
are  presumably  weaker  in  constitution  than  the 
two  who  could  have  endured  even  such  con- 
ditions. The  two  Chinese  survivors  will  trans- 
mit some  of  their  superior  vitality  to  their  off- 
spring; and  these  in  turn  will  be  subject  to  the 
same  sifting,  so  that  the  surviving  two-tenths  will 
pass  on  to  their  children  a still  greater  vitality. 
Hence  these  divergent  child  mortalities  drive, 
as  it  were,  a wedge  between  the  physiques  of  the 
two  races.  If,  now,  for  generations  we  whites, 
owing  to  room  and  plenty  and  scientific  medicine 
and  knowledge  of  hygiene,  have  been  subject  to 
a less  searching  and  relentless  elimination  of  the 

33 


34 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


weaker  children  than  the  Chinese,  it  would  be 
reasonable  to  expect  the  Chinese  to  exhibit  a 
greater  vitality  than  the  whites. 

With  a view  to  ascertaining  whether  the  marked 
slackening  in  our  struggle  for  life  during  the  last 
century  or  two  and  our  greater  skill  in  keeping 
people  alive  has  produced  noticeable  effects  on 
our  physique,  I closely  questioned  thirty-three 
physicians  practicing  in  various  parts  of  China, 
usually  at  mission  hospitals. 

Of  these  physicians  only  one,  a very  intelligent 
German  doctor  at  Tsingtao,  had  noticed  no  point 
of  superiority  in  his  Chinese  patients.  He  de- 
clared them  less  resistant  to  injury,  less  respon- 
sive to  treatment  and  no  more  enduring  of  pain 
than  the  simple  and  hardy  peasants  of  Thuringia 
amongst  whom  he  had  formerly  practiced.  Three 
other  physicians,  each  of  whom  had  practiced  a 
quarter  century  or  more  in  China,  had  observed 
no  difference  in  the  physical  reactions  of  the  two 
races.  I fancy  their  recollections  of  their  brief 
student  practice  at  home  had  so  faded  with  time 
that  they  lacked  one  of  the  terms  of  the  com- 
parison. Moreover,  two  of  these  admitted  under 
questioning  that  the  Chinese  do  stand  high  fevers 
remarkably  well  and  that  they  do  recover  from 
blood  poisoning  when  a white  man  would  die. 

The  remaining  twenty-nine  physicians  were 
positive  that  the  Chinese  physique  evinces  some 
superiority  or  other  over  that  of  their  home  peo- 
ple. As  regards  surgical  cases,  the  general  opin- 
ion is  voiced  by  one  English  surgeon  who  said, 


THE  RACE  FIBER  OF  THE  CHINESE  35 


“They  do  pull  through  jolly  well!”  It  was  com- 
monly observed  that  surgical  shock  is  rare,  and 
that  the  proportion  of  recoveries  from  serious 
cuttings  is  as  high  in  the  little,  poorly  equipped, 
semi-aseptic  mission  hospitals  of  China  as  in  the 
perfectly  appointed,  aseptic  hospitals  at  home. 
Dr.  Kinnear  of  Foochow,  recently  home  from  a 
furlough  in  Germany,  found  that  in  treating 
phlegma  of  the  hand  he,  with  his  poor  equipment 
and  native  assistants,  gets  as  good  results  as  the 
great  Von  Bergman  working  under  ideal  condi- 
tions on  the  artisan  population  of  Berlin.  The 
opinion  prevails  that  under  equal  conditions  the 
Chinese  will  make  a surer  and  quicker  recovery 
from  a major  operation  than  the  white. 

Many  never  get  over  being  astonished  at  the 
recovery  of  the  Chinese  from  terrible  injuries. 
I was  told  of  a coolie  who  had  his  abdomen  torn 
open  in  an  accident,  and  who  was  assisted  to  the 
hospital  supported  by  a man  on  either  side  and 
holding  his  bowels  in  his  hands.  He  was  sewed 
up  and,  in  spite  of  the  contamination  that  must 
have  gotten  into  the  abdomen,  made  a quick  recov- 
ery! Amazing  also  is  the  response  to  the  treat- 
ment of  neglected  wounds.  A boy  whose  severed 
fingers  had  been  hastily  stuck  on  anyhow  and 
bound  up  with  dirty  rags  came  to  the  hospital 
after  a week  with  a horrible  hand  and  showing 
clear  symptoms  of  lockjaw.  They  washed  his 
hand  and  sent  him  home  to  die.  In  three  days  he 
was  about  without  a sign  of  lockjaw.  A man 
whose  fingers  had  been  crushed  under  a cart  some 


36 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


days  before  came  in  with  blood-poisoning  all  up 
his  arm  and  in  the  glands  under  the  arm.  The 
trouble  vanished  under  simple  treatment.  A pa- 
tient will  be  brought  in  with  a high  fever  from  a 
wound  of  several  days’  standing  full  of  maggots; 
yet  after  the  wound  is  cleansed  the  fever  quickly 
subsides.  A woman  who  had  undergone  a serious 
operation  for  cancer  of  the  breast  suffered  infec- 
tion and  had  a fever  of  106°  during  which  her 
husband  fed  her  with  hard  water  chestnuts.  Nev- 
ertheless, she  recovered. 

Nearly  all  are  struck  by  the  resistance  of  the 
Chinese  to  blood-poisoning.  From  my  note  books 
I gather  such  expressions  as,  “Blood-poisoning 
very  rare;  more  resistant  than  we  are  to  septi- 
caemia”; “Relative  immunity  to  pus-producing 
germs”;  “More  resistant  to  gangrene  than  we 
are;  injuries  which  at  home  would  cause  serious 
gangrene  do  not  do  so  here”;  “Peculiarly  resist- 
ant to  infection”;  “With  badly  gangrened  wounds 
in  the  extremities  show  very  little  fever  and 
quickly  get  well”;  “Women  withstand  septicaemia 
in  maternity  cases  wonderfully  well,  recovering 
after  the  doctors  have  given  them  up”;  “Recover 
from  septicaemia  after  a week  of  high  fever  that 
would  kill  a white  man.”  No  wonder  there  is  a 
saying  rife  among  the  foreign  doctors,  “Don’t 
give  up  a Chinaman  till  he’s  dead.” 

In  the  South,  where  foot  binding  is  not  preva- 
lent, the  women  bear  their  children  very  easily, 
with  little  outcry,  and  are  expected  to  be  up  in  a 
day  or  two.  Dr.  Swan  of  Canton  relates  that 


A Canton  water-front  crowd 


Station  platform  faces 


THE  RACE  FIBER  OF  THE  CHINESE  39 


more  than  once  on  calling  for  a sampan  to  take 
him  across  the  river  he  has  been  asked  to  wait  a 
quarter  or  a half  an  hour.  By  that  time  the  mis- 
tress of  the  boat  would  have  given  birth  to  a 
child,  laid  it  in  a corner  among  some  rags,  and  he 
ready  to  row  him  across ! In  childbirth  the 
woman  attended  by  a dirty  old  midwife  in  a filthy 
hovel  escapes  puerperal  fever  under  conditions 
that  would  certainly  kill  a white  woman.  In  cases 
of  difficult  birth,  when  after  a couple  of  days  the 
white  physician  is  called  in  and  removes  the  dead 
infant,  the  woman  has  some  fever  but  soon  re- 
covers. The  women,  moreover,  are  remarkably 
free  from  displacements  and  other  troubles  pecul- 
iar to  the  sex. 

Living  in  a supersaturated,  man-stifled  land, 
profoundly  ignorant  of  the  principles  of  hygiene, 
the  masses  have  developed  an  immunity  to  noxious 
microbes  which  excites  the  wonder  and  envy  of 
the  foreigner.  They  are  not  affected  by  a mos- 
quito bite  that  will  raise  a large  lump  on  the  lately- 
come  foreigner.  They  can  use  contaminated 
water  from  canals  without  incurring  dysentery. 
There  is  very  little  typhoid  and  what  there  is 
occurs  in  such  mild  form  that  it  was  long  doubted 
to  be  typhoid.  The  fact  was  settled  affirmatively 
only  by  laboratory  tests.  All  physicians  agree 
that  among  the  Chinese  smallpox  is  a mild  dis- 
ease. One  likened  it  to  the  mumps.  Organic 
heart  trouble,  usually  the  result  of  rheumatic 
fever,  is  declared  to  be  very  rare. 

It  is  universally  remarked  that  in  taking  chloro- 


40 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


form  the  Chinese  rarely  pass  through  an  excited 
stage,  but  go  off  very  quietly.  From  after-nausea 
they  are  almost  wholly  free.  One  physician  of 
twenty-five  years’  practice  has  never  had  a death 
from  chloroform,  although  he  has  not  administered 
ether  half  a dozen  times.  The  fact  is,  however, 
they  stolidly  endure  operations  which  we  would 
never  perform  without  anesthetics.  Small  tumors 
are  usually  thus  removed  and,  in  extracting  teeth, 
gas  is  never  administered.  Sometimes  extensive 
cutting,  e.  g.,  the  removal  of  a tumor  reaching 
down  into  and  involving  the  excision  of  the  de- 
cayed end  of  a rib,  is  borne  without  flinching. 
Only  three  physicians  interviewed  failed  to  re- 
mark the  insensibility  of  their  patients  to  pain. 
Here,  perhaps,  is  the  reason  why  no  people  in  the 
world  have  used  torture  so  freely  as  the  Chinese. 
This  bluntness  of  nerve,  however,  does  not  appear 
to  be  universal.  The  scholars,  who  usually  neg- 
lect to  balance  their  intense  brain  work  with  due 
physical  exercise,  are  not  stoical.  The  meat-eat- 
ing and  wine-hibbing  classes  lack  the  insensibility 
of  the  vegetarian,  non-alcoholic  masses.  The 
self-indulgent  gentry,  who  shun  all  activity,  bodily 
or  mental,  and  give  themselves  up  to  sensual  grati- 
fication, are  very  sensitive  to  pain  and  very  fear- 
ful of  it.  Some  make  the  point,  therefore,  that  the 
oft-noted  dullness  of  sensibility  is  not  a race  trait, 
but  a consequence  of  the  involuntary  simplicity 
and  temperateness  of  life  of  the  common  Chinese. 

One  doctor  remarks  that  at  home  it  is  the  reg- 
ular thing  for  a nervous  chill  to  follow  the  pass- 


THE  RACE  FIBER  OF  THE  CHINESE  41 


ing  of  a sound  into  the  bladder,  whereas  among 
his  patients  it  seldom  occurs.  Another  comments 
on  the  rarity  of  neurasthenia  and  nervous  dys- 
pepsia. The  chief  of  the  army  medical  staff 
points  out  that  during  the  autumn  manceuvers  the 
soldiers  sleep  on  damp  ground  with  a little  straw 
under  them  without  any  ill  effects.  I have  seen 
coolies  after  two  hours  of  burden-bearing  at  a dog 
trot  shovel  themselves  full  of  hot  rice  with  scarcely 
any  mastication,  and  hurry  on  for  another  two 
hours.  A white  man  would  have  writhed  with 
indigestion.  The  Chinese  seem  able  to  sleep  in 
any  position.  I have  seen  them  sleeping  on  piles 
of  bricks,  or  stones,  or  poles,  with  a block  or  a 
brick  for  a pillow,  and  with  the  hot  sun  shining 
full  into  the  face.  They  stand  a cramped  position 
longer  than  we  can  and  can  keep  on  longer  at 
monotonous  toil  unrelieved  by  change  or  break. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  comparison. 
There  is  little  pneumonia  among  the  Chinese  but 
they  stand  it  no  better  than  we  do ; some  say  not 
so  well.  There  is  much  malarial  fever  and  it  goes 
hard  with  them.  In  Hong  Kong  they  seem  to  suc- 
cumb to  the  plague  more  readily  than  the  foreign- 
ers. Among  children  there  is  heavy  mortality 
from  measles  and  scarlet  fever.  In  withstanding 
tuberculosis  they  have  no  advantage  over  us. 
While  they  make  wonderful  recoveries  from  high 
fevers  they  are  not  enduring  of  long  fevers.  Some 
think  this  is  because  the  flame  of  their  vitality 
has  been  turned  low  by  unsanitary  living.  They 
have  a horror  of  fresh  air  and  shut  it  out  of  the 


42 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


sleeping  apartment,  even  on  a warm  night.  In 
the  mission  schools,  if  the  teachers  insist  on  open 
windows  in  the  dormitory,  the  pupils  stifle  under 
the  covers  lest  the  evil  spirits  flying  about  at  night 
should  get  at  them.  The  Chinese  grant  that 
hygiene  may  be  all  very  well  for  these  weakly 
foreigners,  but  see  no  use  in  it  for  themselves. 
It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  their  schoolgirls 
cannot  stand  the  pace  of  American  schoolgirls. 
Often  they  break  down,  or  go  into  a decline,  or 
have  to  take  a long  rest.  In  the  English  mission 
schools  with  their  easier  pace  the  girls  get  on 
better. 

Here  and  there  a doctor  ascribes  the  extraordi- 
nary power  of  resistance  and  recuperation  shown 
by  his  patients  entirely  to  their  diet  and  manner 
of  life  and  denies  any  superior  vitality  in  the  race. 
Other  doctors  practicing  among  the  city  Chinese 
insist  that  the  stamina  of  the  masses  is  under- 
mined by  wretched  living  conditions,  but  that 
under  equal  circumstances  the  yellow  man  has  a 
firmer  hold  on  life  than  the  white  man. 

From  the  testimony  it  is  safe  to  conclude  that 
at  least  a part  of  the  observed  toughness  of  the 
Chinese  is  attributable  to  a special  race  vitality 
which  they  have  acquired  in  the  course  of  a longer 
and  severer  elimination  of  the  less  fit  than  our 
North-European  ancestors  ever  experienced  in 
their  civilized  state.  Such  selection  has  tended  to 
foster  not  so  much  bodily  strength  or  energy  as 
recuperative  power,  resistance  to  infection  and 


The  river  stairs  up  which  all  the  water 
for  Chungking  is  borne 


THE  RACE  FIBER  OF  THE  CHINESE  45 


tolerance  of  unwholesome  conditions  of  living. 
For  many  centuries  the  people  of  South  and  Cen- 
tral China,  crowded  together  in  their  villages  or 
walled  cities,  have  used  water  from  contaminated 
canals  or  from  the  drainings  of  the  rice  fields; 
eaten  of  the  scavenging  pig  or  of  vegetables  stim- 
ulated by  the  contents  of  the  cesspool;  huddled 
under  low  roofs  on  dirt  floors  in  filthy  lanes,  and 
slept  in  fetid  dens  and  stifling  cubicles.  Myriads 
succumbed  to  the  poisons  generated  by  overcrowd- 
ing, and  hardly  a quarter  of  those  born  lived  to 
transmit  their  immunity  to  their  children.  The 
surviving  fittest  has  been  the  type  able  to  with- 
stand foul  air,  stench,  fatigue  toxin,  dampness, 
bad  food,  and  noxious  germs.  I have  no  doubt 
that  if  an  American  population  of  equal  size  lived 
in  Amoy  or  Soochow  as  the  Chinese  there  live,  a 
quarter  would  be  dead  by  the  end  of  the  first  sum- 
mer. But  the  toughening  takes  place  to  the  detri- 
ment of  bodily  growth  and  strength.  Chinese 
children  are  small  for  their  age.  At  birth  the 
infants  are  no  stronger  than  ours.  The  weaker 
are  more  thoroughly  weeded  out,  but  even  the 
surviving  remnant  is  for  a time  weakened  by  the 
hardships  that  have  killed  the  rest. 

I would  not  identify  the  great  vitality  of  the 
Chinese  with  the  primitive  vitality  you  find  in 
Bedouins,  or  Sea  Dyaks,  or  American  Indians. 
This  early  endowment  consists  in  unusual  mus- 
cular strength  and  endurance,  in  normality  of 
bodily  functions,  and  in  power  to  bear  hardship 
and  exposure.  It  does  not  extend  to  immunity 


46 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


from  disease.  Subjected  to  the  conditions  the 
civilized  man  lives  under,  savages  die  off  like 
flies.  Peary’s  Eskimos  could  survive  a fetid 
Greenland  igloo  but  not  an  airy  New  York  board- 
ing house.  The  diseases  that  the  colonizing  Euro- 
pean communicates  to  natural  men  clears  them 
away  more  swiftly  than  his  gunpowder.  Entrance 
upon  the  civilized  state  entails  a universal  ex- 
change of  disease  germs  and  the  necessary  growth 
of  immunity.  Now,  it  is  precisely  in  his  power 
to  withstand  the  poisons  with  which  close-dwellers 
infect  one  another  that  the  Chinaman  is  unique. 
This  power  does  not  seem  to  be  a heritage  from 
his  nomad  life  of  five  or  six  thousand  years  ago. 
It  is  rather  the  painful  acquisition  of  a later  social 
phase.  It  could  have  grown  up  only  in  congested 
cities,  or  under  an  agriculture  that  contaminates 
every  growing  plant,  converts  every  stream  into 
an  open  sewer,  and  fills  the  land  with  mosquito- 
breeding rice  fields.  Such  toleration  of  pathogenic 
microbes  has,  perhaps,  never  before  been  devel- 
oped and  it  certainly  will  never  be  developed 
again.  Now  that  man  knows  how  to  clear  away 
from  his  path  these  invisible  enemies,  he  will  never 
consent  to  buy  immunity  at  the  old  cruel  price. 

To  the  West  the  toughness  of  the  Chinese 
physique  may  have  a sinister  military  significance. 
Nobody  fears  lest  in  a stand-up  fight  Chinese 
troops  could  whip  an  equal  number  of  well-condi- 
tioned white  troops.  But  few  battles  are  fought 
by  men  fresh  from  tent  and  mess.  In  the  course 
of  a prolonged  campaign  involving  irregular  pro- 


THE  RACE  FIBER  OF  THE  CHINESE  47 


visioning,  bad  drinking  water,  lying  out,  loss  of 
sleep,  exhausting  marches,  exposure,  excitement 
and  anxiety,  it  may  be  that  the  white  soldiers 
would  be  worn  down  worse  than  the  yellow  sol- 
diers. In  that  case  the  hardier  men  with  less 
of  the  martial  spirit  might  in  the  closing 
grapple  beat  the  better  fighters  with  the  less  en- 
durance. 

In  view  of  what  has  been  shown,  the  competi- 
tion of  white  laborer  and  yellow  is  not  so  simple 
a test  of  human  worth  as  some  may  imagine. 
Under  good  conditions  the  white  man  can  best 
the  yellow  man  in  turning  off  work.  But  under 
bad  conditions  the  yellow  man  can  best  the  white 
man  because  he  can  better  endure  spoiled  food, 
poor  clothing,  foul  air,  noise,  heat,  dirt,  discom- 
fort and  microbes.  Reilly  can  outdo  Ah  San,  but 
Ah  San  can  underlive  Reilly.  Ah  San  cannot 
take  away  Reilly’s  job  as  being  a better  work- 
man; but,  because  he  can  live  and  do  some  work 
at  a wage  on  which  Reilly  cannot  keep  himself 
fit  to  work  at  all,  three  or  four  Ah  Sans  can  take 
Reilly’s  job  from  him.  And  they  will  do  it,  too, 
unless  they  are  barred  out  of  the  market  where 
Reilly  is  selling  his  labor.  Reilly’s  endeavor  to 
exclude  Ah  San  from  his  labor  market  is  not  the 
case  of  a man  dreading  to  pit  himself  on  equal 
terms  against  a better  man.  Indeed,  it  is  not 
quite  so  simple  and  selfish  and  narrow-minded  as 
all  that. 

It  is  a case  of  a man  fitted  to  get  the  most 
out  of  good  conditions  refusing  to  yield  his  place 


48  THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 

to  a weaker  man  able  to  withstand  bad  condi- 
tions. 

Of  course,  with  the  coming  in  of  Western  sani- 
tation, the  terrible  selective  process  by  which 
Chinese  toughness  has  been  built  up  will  come  to 
an  end,  and  this  property  will  gradually  fade  out 
of  the  race  physique.  But  for  our  time  at  least 
it  is  a serious  and  pregnant  fact.  It  will  take 
some  generations  of  exposure  to  the  relaxing 
effects  of  drains,  ventilation,  doctors,  district 
nurses,  food  inspectors,  pure  water,  open  spaces 
and  out-of-door  sports  to  eradicate  the  peculiar 
vitality  which  the  yellow  race  has  acquired.  Dur- 
ing the  interim  the  chief  effect  of  freely  admitting 
coolies  to  the  labor  markets  of  the  West  would 
be  the  substitution  of  low  wages,  bad  living  con- 
ditions and  the  increase  of  the  yellow  race  for 
high  wages,  good  living  conditions  and  the  in- 
crease of  the  white  race. 


Scene  in  the  Imperial  City,  Peking 


Hovel  on  beach  at  Kiukiang.  Over  the  door 
the  character  for  “happiness” 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  RACE  MIND  OF  THE  CHINESE 

THE  more  cheaply  gotten-up  races  of  men  have 
a short  mental  circuit  and  respond  promptly 
to  stimulus.  Knowing  the  impulses  aroused  in 
them  by  their  experiences  you  can  foretell  their 
actions.  They  cannot  inhibit  their  impulses  and 
let  them  accumulate  until  reflection  has  fused  them 
into  a conscious  purpose.  But  the  races  of  the 
higher  destiny  are  not  so  easily  set  in  motion. 
They  are  able  to  hold  back  and  digest  their  im- 
pulses. The  key  to  their  conduct  is  to  be  found, 
not  in  their  impressions,  but  in  their  thoughts  and 
convictions.  Their  course  is  to  be  interpreted 
not  by  their  impulses  but  by  their  purposes.  Their 
intellect  is  a massive  fly-wheel  by  means  of  which 
continuous  will  power  is  derived  from  confused 
and  intermittent  stimuli.  The  man  of  this  type 
does  not  act  till  he  has  made  up  his  mind  and  he 
does  not  make  up  his  mind  till  he  has  heard  both 
sides.  His  emotion  is  not  as  the  crackling  of  dry 
thorns  under  a pot,  but  like  the  lasting  glow  that 
will  smelt  iron.  He  obeys  not  his  promptings,  but 
his  decisions.  His  conduct  is  not  fitful  and  zigzag, 
but  even  and  consistent.  More  and  more  this 
steady  and  reliable  type  is  demanded  in  a social 
organization  so  complex  that  normal  action  must 

3 51 


52 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


be  deliberate  and  in  a civilization  so  scientific  that 
pondered  knowledge  is  essential  to  wise  decis- 
ion. 

We  like  to  think  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  as  of  this 
stable  type  and  feel  that  such  an  endowment  makes 
up  to  our  race  for  its  lack  of  the  quick  mobile  feel- 
ing, the  social  tact  and  the  sensitiveness  to  beauty 
so  characteristic  of  South  Europeans.  Now,  of 
this  massive  unswerving  type  are  the  Chinese. 
Fiery  or  headlong  action  is  the  last  thing  to  be 
expected  of  yellow  men.  They  command  their 
feelings  and  know  how  to  bide  their  time.  They 
are  not  hot  to-day,  cold  to-morrow.  Hard  are  they 
to  move,  but  once  in  motion  they  have  momentum. 
Slow  are  they  to  promise,  but  once  they  have 
promised  for  a consideration  they  “ stick.’ ’ They 
are  stubborn  to  convert  but  they  make  staunch 
converts.  Their  eloquence  is  more  akin  to  the 
eloquence  of  Pitt  or  Bright  than  to  that  of  0 ’Con- 
nell or  Gambetta.  One  does  not  term  suicide  a 
“rash  act”  in  a land  where  so  many  suicides  are 
carried  out  of  set  purpose.  Instead  of  assassi- 
nating the  high-placed  betrayer  of  his  country, 
the  Chinese  patriot  sends  his  Emperor  a plain- 
spoken  memorial  about  the  traitor  and  then  kills 
himself  to  show  he  is  in  earnest.  No  matter  what 
their  intensity  of  feeling,  the  members  of  the  pro- 
vincial assemblies  that  met  for  the  first  time  two 
years  ago  kept  themselves  in  hand  and  surprised 
the  world  by  their  self-restraint  and  decorum. 

Some  observations  made  by  a gentleman  writing 
life  insurance  in  Hawaii  throw  a strong  light  on 


THE  BACE  MIND  OF  THE  CHINESE  53 


Chinese  traits.  He  found  the  Japanese  impres- 
sible and  easy  to  persuade,  especially  if  he 
learns  that  other  Japanese  are  taking  out  poli- 
cies. Tell  him  his  friend  So-and-So  has  insured 
and  he  promptly  orders  a bigger  policy.  But 
when  a month  later  the  policy  arrives  from  the 
New  York  office  his  interest  has  cooled  and  he 
will  never  take  it  unless  he  was  required  to  make 
an  advance  payment.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Chinaman  can  be  neither  cajoled  nor  stampeded. 
He  takes  a sample  policy  home,  studies  it  over 
night,  and  is  ready  next  day  with  his  answer.  If  it 
is  “Yes,”  he  invariably  refuses  to  make  an  ad- 
vance payment  on  the  ground  that,  as  yet,  he  has 
received  nothing  of  value.  When  the  policy 
arrives  he  receipts  for  it,  takes  it  home,  and  com- 
pares it  line  by  line  with  the  sample  policy.  The 
next  day  he  is  always  ready  with  the  premium. 
I introduce  this  comparison  not  to  discredit  the 
Japanese,  for  tlieir  gifts  are  well  known,  but  to 
bring  out  the  deliberate  unimpressible  character 
of  the  Chinese. 

Chinese  conservatism,  unlike  the  conservatism 
of  the  lower  races,  is  not  merely  an  emotional  atti- 
tude. It  is  not  inspired  chiefly  by  dread  of  the 
unknown,  horror  of  the  new,  or  a fanatical  attach- 
ment to  a system  of  ideas  which  gives  them  confi- 
dence in  the  established.  It  is  the  logical  outcome 
of  precedent.  Change  the  ideas  of  the  Chinese 
and  their  policy  will  change.  Let  their  minds 
be  possessed  by  a philosophy  that  makes  them 
doubt  the  past  and  have  confidence  in  the  future, 


54 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


and  they  will  prove  to  be  as  consistently  pro- 
gressive as  are  the  Germans  of  to-day. 

The  Nestor  of  the  missionaries,  Doctor  Martin 
of  Peking,  after  his  sixty  years  of  labor  in  the 
Orient,  believes  that  the  modern  Chinese  have 
somehow  lost  the  originality  and  inventiveness 
their  forefathers  possessed  in  the  great  days  of 
old  when  the  civilization  of  the  Middle  Kingdom 
was  still  in  the  gristle.  He  surmises  that  this 
precious  endowment  was  wasted  by  the  continued 
use  of  the  memory-taxing  ideographic  language  or 
by  a cram  system  of  education  shaped  with  refer- 
ence to  passing  competitive  examinations.  To 
those  of  us  who  question  the  atrophy  of  a race 
quality  through  disuse,  and  doubt  if  any  amount 
of  sterilizing  education  can  quench  the  originality 
of  a race  beyond  the  generation  submitted  to  it, 
it  seems  more  likely  that  the  contemporary 
Chinese  intellect  is  sterile  because  of  the  state  of 
the  social  mind. 

It  is  true  that  the  culture  development  of  the 
Chinese  ceased  at  stages  no  more  difficult  to  nego- 
tiate than  the  earlier  stages.  In  painting  they 
never  mastered  perspective.  In  music  they  never 
achieved  harmony.  Their  language  is  lacking  in 
relative  pronouns  and  other  words  indicating  the 
relation  of  statements  to  one  another.  Their 
writing  is  arrested  at  the  level  of  ancient  Baby- 
lonia and  Egypt.  For  many  centuries,  however, 
their  psychological  climate  has  been  unfavorable 
to  innovating  thought.  As  well  expect  the  apple 
tree  to  blossom  in  October  as  expect  genius  to 


police  squad  in  Sianfu  Meeting-  of  the  first  provincial  assembly 

of  the  Province  of  Fokien,  Foochow, 
October,  1909 


THE  EACE  MIND  OF  THE  CHINESE  57 


bloom  among  a people  convinced  that  the  perfec- 
tion of  wisdom  had  been  granted  to  the  sages  of 
antiquity.  Before  he  has  fairly  begun  to  bring 
forth,  the  fresh  thinker  has  been  discouraged  and 
intimidated  by  the  leaden  weight  of  conservative 
opinion  about  him.  In  a word,  the  social  atmos- 
phere has  become  oppressive,  lacking  the  stimu- 
lating oxygen  it  had  in  the  distant  days  when  the 
Chinese  invented  gunpowder,  block  printing,  bank- 
notes, porcelain,  the  compass,  the  compartment 
boat  and  the  taxicab. 

The  patent  stagnation  of  the  collective  mind  is 
due  not  to  native  sluggishness  but  to  prepossession 
by  certain  beliefs.  These  beliefs  are  tenaciously 
held  because  in  their  practical  outworkings  they 
have  been  successful.  Under  them  vast  popula- 
tions have  been  able  to  attain  order,  security  and 
a goodly  measure  of  happiness.  Moreover,  as 
these  beliefs  have  expanded  their  circle  of  influ- 
ence, they  have  never — until  lately — encountered 
any  system  of  ideas  that  could  withstand  them. 
Chinese  culture  has  spread  and  spread  until  all 
Eastern  Asia  bows  to  it.  Nestorian  Christianity 
flourished  there  and  vanished.  The  J ews  of 
Kaifeng-fu  lost  their  language  and  religion  and 
became  Chinese  in  all  but  physiognomy.  The 
conquering  Manchus  have  forgotten  their  language 
and  literature.  “China,”  it  has  been  finely  said, 
“is  a sea  which  salts  everything  that  flows  into 
it.”  The  guardians  of  a culture  so  vanquishing 
may  well  be  pardoned  for  regarding  as  presump- 
tuous any  endeavor  to  improve  on  it. 


58 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


For  centuries  the  Chinese  have  found  themselves 
in  the  situation  our  descendants  will  perhaps  find 
themselves  in  when,  half  a thousand  years  hence, 
they  are  enfolded  in  the  colossal  body  of  a single 
self-consistent  planetary  culture;  when  scientific 
research  shall  have  long  been  subject  to  the  law 
of  diminishing  returns;  when  nothing  but  a thin 
rill  of  trifling  discoveries  will  trickle  from  the 
splendid  laboratories;  when  the  proceedings  of 
scientific  congresses  will  be  as  trivial  as  the  dis- 
cussions of  the  Church  Councils  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury; when  the  elite  of  the  human  race  will  have 
forgotten  the  thrill  from  such  fructifying  new 
truths  as  our  generation  has  enjoyed  in  the  dis- 
covery of  radioactivity,  the  germ  origin  of  disease, 
natural  selection,  mutation,  and  mental  suggesti- 
bility. Then,  perhaps,  without  any  abatement  of 
its  powers,  the  intellect  of  our  race  may  develop 
such  unshakable  faith  in  the  soundness  and  suffi- 
ciency of  its  system  of  scientific  knowledge  and 
thought,  that  nothing  but  intercourse  with  the 
Martians  will  be  able  to  release  it  from  the  numb- 
ing grasp  of  the  established  and  arouse  it  to  fresh 
conquests. 

It  is  rash,  therefore,  to  take  the  observed  ster- 
ility of  the  Celestial  mind  during  the  period  of 
intercourse  with  the  West  as  proof  of  race  defi- 
ciency. Chinese  culture  is  undergoing  a break- 
ing-up process  which  will  release  powerful  indi- 
vidualities from  the  spell  of  the  past  and  of 
numbers,  and  stimulate  them  to  high  personal 
achievement.  In  the  Malay  States,  where  the 


Altar,  Temple  of  Heaven,  Peking 


View  in  the  Temple  grounds  of  the  Ming 
Tombs.  Mountains  near  Peking 


THE  RACE  MIND  OF  THE  CHINESE  61 


Chinese  escape  the  lifeless  atmosphere  and  the 
confining  social  organization  of  their  own  land, 
their  ingenuity  is  already  such  that  unprejudiced 
white  men  have  come  to  regard  them  as  our  intel- 
lectual peers.  Civil  engineers  will  tell  you  that  in 
a score  or  two  of  years,  after  bright  Chinese  youth 
have  had  access  to  schools  of  technology  equal  to 
those  of  the  West,  there  will  be  no  place  in  the 
engineering  and  technical  work  of  the  Far  East 
for  the  high-priced  white  expert.  In  Shanghai, 
too,  the  clever  Chinese  are  learning  to  play  the 
game.  I am  told  they  are  rapidly  getting  into 
their  hands,  banking,  coast-wise  navigation,  the 
cotton  trade  and  other  branches  by  which  the  for- 
eigners there  make  their  money;  indeed,  some 
deem  it  only  a matter  of  time  when  white  men  will 
be  unable  to  make  a living  by  trade  on  the  Chinese 
coast,  having  been  frozen  out  there  as  they  are 
being  frozen  out  in  Japan. 

To  forty-three  men  who,  as  educators,  mission- 
aries and  diplomats,  have  had  good  opportunity  to 
learn  the  “feel”  of  the  Chinese  mind,  I put  the 
question,  “Do  you  find  the  intellectual  capacity  of 
the  yellow  race  equal  to  that  of  the  white  race?” 
All  but  five  answered  “Yes,”  and  one  sinologue 
of  varied  experience  as  missionary,  university 
president  and  legation  adviser  left  me  gasping 
with  the  statement,  “Most  of  us  who  have  spent 
twenty-five  years  or  more  out  here  come  to  feel 
that  the  yellow  race  is  the  normal  human  type, 
while  the  white  race  is  a ‘sport.’  ” The  trend  of 
opinion  is  that  when  the  Chinese  have  become 


62 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


equipped  with  the  Western  arts  and  sciences  they 
will  match  us  in  intellectual  performance,  although 
some  think  that  the  gap  in  ability  between  the 
masses  and  the  higher  classes  is  much  wider  than 
it  is  in  the  West. 

It  is  significant  that  superior  white  men  of  long 
residence  in  the  Middle  Kingdom  often  become 
too  Chinese  in  point  of  view  to  be  of  much  service 
to  their  governments.  Sir  Robert  Hart  was  com- 
plained of  as  virtually  a Chinaman.  Many  of  the 
consular  veterans  in  the  China  service  are  said  to 
champion  the  Chinese  way  of  looking  at  things 
as  against  the  Western.  It  seems  that,  little  by 
little,  the  civilization  of  the  East  invades,  disarms 
and  takes  possession  of  them.  In  the  finer 
Chinese  they  discover  an  outlook  more  compre- 
hensive than  their  own,  a broader  tolerance,  and  a 
philosophic  patience  that  makes  mock  of  the 
eager,  impetuous  West. 

The  heart  of  the  case  seems  to  be  this : 

Since  the  discovery  of  America  the  West-Euro- 
pean  whites  have  overrun  the  West  Indies,  the 
Americas,  Australia,  Africa,  the  islands  of  the 
Sea  and  Southern  Asia,  while  their  East-European 
brethren  have  occupied  Northwestern  and  North- 
ern Asia.  During  this  expansion  the  whites  have 
encountered  hundreds  of  races  and  peoples  before 
unknown  to  them;  but  in  all  this  time  they  have 
never  met  a race  that  could  successfully  dispute 
their  military  superiority,  contribute  to  their 
civilization,  or  dispense  with  their  direction  in 
political  or  industrial  organization.  Now,  after 


THE  EACE  MIND  OF  THE  CHINESE  63 


three  centuries  of  such  experience,  during  which 
the  white  man  has  grown  accustomed  to  regarding 
himself  as  the  undisputed  sovereign  of  the  planet, 
he  makes  the  acquaintance  of  peoples  in  Eastern 
Asia  who  are,  perhaps,  as  capable  as  the  whites 
and  who  threaten  to  spread  into  areas  he  had 
staked  off  for  himself.  In  any  case  it  begins  to 
appear  that  the  future  bearers  and  advancers  of 
civilization  will  he,  not  the  whites  alone,  but  the 
white  and  the  yellow  races ; and  the  control  of  the 
globe  will  lie  in  the  hands  of  two  races  instead  of 
one. 

Practically  all  foreigners  in  China  who  are  cap- 
able of  sympathy  with  another  race  become  warm 
friends  of  the  Chinese.  They  are  not  attracted, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Japanese,  by  charm  of  man- 
ner or  delicacy  of  sentiment  or  beauty  of  art,  but  */ 
by  the  solid  human  qualities  of  the  folk.  The  fact 
is,  the  Chinese  are  extremely  likable  and  those 
who  have  known  them  longest  like  them  best.  Al- 
most invariably  those  who  harshly  disparage  them 
are  people  who  are  coarse  or  narrow  or  bigoted. 

They  are  not  a sour  or  sullen  folk.  Smile  at 
them  and  back  comes  a look  that  puts  you  on  a 
footing  of  mutual  understanding.  Their  lively 
sense  of  humor  is  a bond  that  unites  them  to  the 
foreigner.  One  lone  traveler  at  a critical  moment 
in  a Chinese  street  seized  the  ringleader  of  the 
mob  and  tied  him  by  his  queue  to  a door-post.  The 
crowd  howled  with  laughter,  while  the  traveler 
slipped  away.  Another  foreigner  of  unusual 


64 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


stature  found  he  could  always  get  on  good  terms 
with  a crowd  by  flinging  out  his  arm  over  the  head 
of  the  nearest  native.  The  bystanders  grinned  at 
the  contrast  and  their  good  nature  asserted  itself. 

Horrible  deeds  have  been  wrought  by  Chinese 
mobs,  but  not  one  whit  worse  than  the  atrocities 
committed  by  mobs  of  our  ancestors  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  In  view  of  their  ignorance  and  supersti- 
tion, indeed,  the  Chinese  masses  are  on  a level  with 
our  forefathers  in  the  days  of  witchcraft,  Jew- 
baiting,  the  dancing-mania,  and  the  flagellants. 
In  view  of  their  limited  schooling,  one  marvels  at 
the  diffusion  among  them  of  a politeness  without 
a taint  of  servility.  For  all  their  illiteracy,  the 
common  people  keenly  appreciate  good  form ; and 
the  traveler  who  approaches  them  with  the  man- 
ners they  understand  finds  few  too  ignorant  or  too 
uncouth  to  meet  him  half  way. 

Nothing  is  more  creditable  to  the  domestic 
organization  of  the  Chinese  than  the  attractive 
old  people  it  produces.  The  old  women,  it  is  true, 
are  not  so  frequently  a success  as  the  old  men. 
The  years  of  pain  from  their  bound  feet  and  the 
crosses  they  have  had  to  bear  as  women  too  often 
sour  the  temper,  and  kindly-faced  grannies  seem 
by  no  means  so  common  as  with  us.  The  natural 
result  of  steadily  giving  one  sex  the  worst  of  it 
is  a distressing  crop  of  village  shrews.  On  the 
other  hand,  I have  never  seen  old  faces  more 
dignified,  serene  and  benevolent  than  I have  met 
with  among  elderly  Chinese  farmers.  Often  it 
seems  as  if  the  soul  behind  the  countenance,  purged 


THE  RACE  MIND  OF  THE  CHINESE  65 


of  every  selfish  thought,  had  come  to  dwell  wholly 
in  the  welfare  of  others.  The  rights  of  the  parent 
are  such  that  every  man  with  grandsons  is  prac- 
tically endowed  with  an  old  age  pension.  Hence 
you  notice  more  smooth  brows,  calm  eyes  and  care- 
free faces  among  old  Chinese  farmers  than  among 
old  American  farmers. 

In  general  I hold  Western  individualism  supe- 
rior, for  both  individual  and  social  advancement, 
to  Chinese  familism.  I rejoice  that  with  us  a man 
is  free  to  decide,  to  act,  to  rise  without  being  ham- 
pered by  a host  of  relatives.  I am  glad  that  he 
is  legally  responsible  only  for  his  own  misdeeds, 
never  for  the  misdeeds  of  his  kinsman.  Still,  I 
believe  we  have  gone  too  far  in  emancipating 
grown  children  from  obligations  to  their  parents. 
Too  often  among  us  old  age  is  clouded  up  by  the 
depressing  sense  of  being  shelved  and  being  a 
burden.  Chinese  ethics  gives  the  parent  more 
rights  and  lays  upon  the  sons  more  duties.  Com- 
ing on  the  up-curve  of  life  the  duties  are  easy  to 
bear,  while,  coming  on  the  down-curve  of  life,  the 
corresponding  rights  are  a real  solace.  In  a word, 
the  added  happiness  to  the  old  folks  far  outweighs 
the  inconvenience  to  the  sons.  It  is  not  easy  to 
sweeten  and  brighten  old  age,  and  the  success  of 
the  Chinese  ought  to  inspire  in  us  a doubt  about 
our  practical  family  ethics. 

The  high  capacity  of  the  sons  of  Han  is  no 
guarantee  that  they  are  destined  to  play  a bril- 
liant role  in  the  near  future.  Misunderstanding 


66 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


the  true  causes  of  our  success  their  naive  intel- 
lectuals who  have  traveled  or  studied  abroad  often 
imagine  that  a wholesale  adoption  of  Western 
methods  and  institutions  would,  almost  at  once, 
lift  their  countrymen  to  the  plane  of  wealth,  power 
and  popular  intelligence  occupied  by  the  leading 
peoples  of  the  West.  Now,  the  fact  is  that  if  by 
the  waving  of  a wand  all  Chinese  could  he  turned 
into  eager  progressives  willing  to  borrow  every 
good  thing,  it  would  still  be  long  before  the  indi- 
vidual Chinaman  attained  the  efficiency,  comfort 
and  social  and  political  value  of  the  West-Euro- 
pean  or  American.  For  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  foundations  of  our  advancement  are  more 
economic  than  we  think,  and  that  we  attribute  to 
our  institutions  much  prosperity  that  is  really  due 
to  the  fewness  of  our  people  in  relation  to  the 
economic  opportunities.  Conversely,  much  of  the 
backwardness  and  misery  in  China  that  we  charge 
to  the  shortcomings  of  its  civilization  and  insti- 
tutions is  due  simply  to  too  many  people  trying 
to  live  from  a given  area. 

If  this  is  so,  it  is  idle  to  expect  Chinese  society 
to  take  on  the  general  appearance  of  Western 
society  until  there  has  occurred  a far-reaching 
readjustment  between  population  and  opportuni- 
ties. On  the  one  hand,  the  Chinese  will  have  to 
build  railroads,  open  mines,  sink  petroleum  wells, 
harness  water-power,  erect  mills,  adopt  machin- 
ery, reforest  their  mountains,  construct  irrigation 
works,  introduce  better  breeds  of  domestic  animals 
and  plants,  and  apply  science  to  the  production  of 


A.  rustic  Endymion  of  West  China  An  old  farmer 


THE  RACE  MIND  OF  THE  CHINESE  69 


food.  All  this  economic  leveling  up  to  our  plane, 
however,  would  not  in  the  least  improve  the  qual- 
ity of  Chinese  life,  if  the  increase  of  population 
promptly  took  up  all  the  slack,  as  it  certainly 
would  do  under  the  present  social  regime.  At  the 
end  of  the  process  there  would  be  nothing  to  show 
for  it  all  but  twice  as  many  Chinese,  no  better,  no 
wiser,  no  happier  than  before.  It  is  equally  neces- 
sary, therefore,  for  the  Chinese  to  slacken  their 
multiplication  by  dropping  ancestor  worship,  dis- 
solving the  clan,  educating  girls,  elevating  woman, 
postponing  marriage,  introducing  compulsory  edu- 
cation, restricting  child-labor  and  otherwise  indi- 
vidualizing the  members  of  the  family.  All  this 
will  take  time ; and  even  if  the  Chinese  should  be 
so  fortunate  as  to  experience  a smooth  continuous 
social  development,  unbroken  by  reaction,  foreign 
domination,  or  civil  convulsion,  it  will  be  at  best 
a couple  of  lifetimes  before  the  plane  of  existence 
of  their  common  people  will  at  all  approximate 
that  of  the  common  people  in  America. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  IN  CHINA 

IN  China  to-day  one  may  observe  a state  of  so- 
ciety the  like  of  which  has  not  been  seen  in  the 
West  since  the  Middle  Ages,  and  which  will  prob- 
ably never  recur  on  this  planet.  For  many  genera- 
tions the  Chinese,  loath  to  abandon  to  the  careless 
plow  of  the  stranger  the  graves  that  dot  the  ances- 
tral fields  and  reluctant  to  exile  themselves  from 
the  lighted  circle  of  civilization  into  the  twilight  of 
barbarism,  have  stayed  at  home  multiplying  until 
reproduction  and  destruction  have  struck  a balance 
and  society  has  entered  upon  the  stationary  stage. 
To  Americans,  who  have  had  the  good  fortune  to 
develop  their  life  and  standards  in  the  cheerful 
presence  of  unlimited  free  land,  the  life  and  stand- 
ards of  a people  that  for  centuries  have  been 
crowding  upon  the  subsistence  possibilities  of  their 
environment  cannot  but  seem  strange  and 
eccentric. 

The  most  arresting  feature  of  Chinese  life  is 
the  ruthless  way  in  which  the  available  natural 
resources  have  been  made  to  minister  to  man’s 
lower  needs.  It  is  true  that  childish  superstitions 
have  held  back  the  Chinese  from  freely  exploiting 
their  mineral  treasures.  It  is  also  true  that  from 
five  to  ten  per  cent.,  in  some  cases  even  twenty 

70 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  71 


per  cent.,  of  the  farms  is  given  np  to  the  grave- 
mounds  of  ancestors.  But,  aside  from  these 
cases,  the  earth  is  utilized  as  perhaps  it  never  has 
been  elsewhere.  Little  land  lies  waste  in  high- 
ways. Throughout  the  rice  zone  the  roads  are 
mere  footpaths,  one  to  three  feet  wide,  yet  the 
greedy  farmers  nibble  away  at  the  roads  on  both 
sides  until  the  undermined  paving-stones  tilt  and 
sink  dismally  into  the  paddy-fields.  Pasture  or 
meadow  there  is  none,  for  land  is  too  precious  to 
be  used  in  growing  food  for  animals.  Even  on  the 
boulder-strewn  steeps  there  is  no  grazing  save  for 
goats ; for  where  a cow  can  crop  herbage  a man 
can  grow  a hill  of  corn.  The  cows  and  the  water- 
buffaloes  never  taste  grass  except  when  they  are 
taken  out  on  a tether  by  an  old  granny  and  allowed 
to  browse  by  the  roadside  and  the  ditches,  or  along 
the  terraces  of  the  rice  fields. 

The  traveler  who  in  dismay  at  stories  of  the 
dirt,  vermin  and  stenches  of  native  inns  plans  to 
camp  in  the  cleanly  open  is  incredulous  when  he  is 
told  that  there  is  no  room  to  pitch  a tent.  Yet 
such  is  the  case  in  two-thirds  of  China.  He  will 
find  no  roadside,  no  commons,  no  waste  land,  no 
pasture,  no  groves  nor  orchards,  not  even  a door- 
yard  or  a cow-pen.  Save  the  threshing-floor  every 
outdoor  spot  fit  to  spread  a blanket  on  is  growing 
something.  But,  if  he  will  pay,  he  may  pitch  his 
tent  in  a submerged  rice-field,  in  the  midst  of  a 
bean-patch,  or  among  the  hills  of  sweet  potatoes ! 

In  one  sense  it  is  true  that  China  is  cultivated 
“like  a garden,”  for  every  lump  is  broken  up, 


72 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


every  weed  is  destroyed,  and  every  plant  is  tended 
like  a baby.  As  one  crop  approaches  maturity 
another  is  made  ready,  the  new  crop  often  being 
planted  between  the  rows  of  the  crop  that  is  not 
yet  gathered.  So  far,  however,  as  the  word 
“garden”  calls  np  visions  of  beauty  and  delight, 
it  does  not  apply.  In  county  after  county  you  will 
not  see  altogether  a rood  of  land  reserved  for 
recreation  or  pleasure.  No  village  green,  no 
lawns,  no  flower-beds  nor  ornamental  shrubbery, 
no  parks,  and  very  few  shade  trees.  Aside  from 
the  groves  about  the  temples,  the  trees  that  relieve 
the  landscape  are  grown  for  use  and  not  for  orna- 
ment. To  be  sure,  there  are  men  of  fortune  in 
inner  China,  but  they  are  relatively  very  few.  I 
doubt,  indeed,  if  one  family  in  two  thousand  boasts 
a garden  with  its  fern-crowned  rockery  and  its 
lotus  pond  overhung  by  drooping  willows  and 
feathery  bamboos.  One  is  struck,  too,  with  the 
rarity  of  grape-arbors,  vineyards,  orchards,  and 
orange  groves.  In  the  country  markets  one  sees 
mountains  of  vegetables,  but  only  a few  paltry 
baskets  of  flavorless  fruit.  The  demand  for  lux- 
uries that  appeal  to  the  palate  is  too  slight,  the 
call  for  sustaining  food  is  too  imperious,  to  with- 
draw much  land  from  its  main  business,  which  is 
to  grow  rice  and  beans  and  wheat  and  garlic  to 
keep  the  people  alive. 

To  win  new  plots  for  tillage  human  sweat  has 
been  poured  out  like  water.  Clear  to  the  top  the 
foothills  have  been  carved  into  terraced  fields. 
On  a single  slope  I counted  forty-seven  such  fields 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  73 


running  up  like  tlie  steps  of  a Brobdingnagian 
staircase.  And  tlie  river-bed  five  hundred  feet 
below,  between  the  thin  streams  that  wander  over 
it  until  the  autumn  rains  cover  it  with  a turbid 
flood,  has  been  smoothed  and  diked  into  hundreds 
of  gemlike  paddy-fields  green  with  the  young 
rice.  In  the  mountains,  where  the  mantle  of 
brown  soil  covering  the  rocks  is  too  thin  to  be 
sculptured  into  level  fields,  the  patches  of  wheat 
and  corn  follow  the  natural  slope  and  the  hoe  must 
be  used  instead  of  the  plow.  Two  such  plots  have 
I seen  at  a measured  angle  of  forty-five  degrees, 
and  any  number  tilted  at  least  forty  degrees  from 
the  horizontal.  From  their  huts  near  the  wooded 
top  of  the  range  half  a mile  above  you  men  clam- 
ber down  and  cultivate  Lilliputian  patches  of  earth 
lodged  in  pockets  among  the  black  naked  rocks. 
Of  course  the  wash  from  these  deforested  and 
tilled  mountain  flanks  is  appalling.  A thousand 
feet  below,  the  Heilung,  the  Han,  or  the  Kialing, 
slate-hued  or  tawny  when  it  should  be  emerald, 
prophesies  of  the  time  when  all  this  exposed  soil 
will  be  useless  bars  in  the  river,  and  the  mountain 
will  lie  stripped  of  the  fertile  elements  slowly  ac- 
cumulated through  geologic  time.  Indeed  one 
hears  with  a shudder  of  districts  where  the  thing 
has  run  its  course  to  the  bitter  end.  Mountains 
dry  gray  skeletons ; the  rich  valley  bottoms  buried 
under  silt  and  gravel;  the  population  dwindled  to 
one  family  in  four  square  miles ! 

Nowhere  can  the  watcher  of  man’s  struggle 
with  his  environment  find  a more  wonderful 


4 


74 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


spectacle  than  meets  the  eye  from  a certain  seven- 
thousand-foot  pass  amid  the  great  tangle  of 
mountains  in  West  China  that  gives  birth  to  the 
Han,  the  Wei,  and  the  rivers  that  make  famed 
Szechuan  the  “Four-river  province.”  Save 
where  steepness  or  rock-outcropping  forbids,  the 
slopes  are  cultivated  from  the  floor  of  the  Tung 
Ho  Valley  right  up  to  the  summits  five  thousand 
feet  above.  In  this  vertical  mile  there  are  dif- 
ferent crops  for  different  altitudes — vegetables 
below,  then  corn,  lastly  wheat.  Sometimes  the 
very  apex  of  the  mountain  wears  a green  peaked 
cap  of  rye.  The  aerial  farms  are  crumpled  into 
the  great  folds  of  the  mountains  and  their  borders 
follow  with  a poetic  grace  the  outthrust  or  in- 
curve of  the  slopes.  In  this  colossal  amphi- 
theater one  beholds  a thousand  fields  but  only 
two  houses.  Here  and  there,  however,  one  de- 
tects in  a distant  yellow  bank  a row  of  dark, 
arched  openings  like  gopher  holes.  It  is  a rural 
village,  for  most  of  these  highlanders  carve  their 
habitations  out  of  the  dry  tenacious  loess. 

The  heart-breaking  labor  of  redeeming  and 
tilling  these  upper  slopes  that  require  a climb  of 
some  thousands  of  feet  from  one’s  cave  home  is 
a sure  sign  of  population  pressure.  It  calls  up 
the  picture  of  a swelling  human  lake,  somehow 
without  egress  from  the  valley,  rising  and  rising 
until  it  fairly  lifts  cultivation  over  the  summits  of 
the  mountains.  In  June  these  circling  tiers  of 
verdant  undulating  sky-farms  are  an  impressive, 
even  a beautiful  sight ; yet  one  cannot  help  think- 


Cave  dwelling  of  a coal  miner 


Perfected  tillage  of  the  valley  of  an  affluent 
of  the  Wei  River 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  77 


ing  of  the  grim,  ever-present  menace  of  hunger 
which  alone  could  have  forced  people  to  such 
prodigies  of  toil. 

Rice  will  thrive  only  under  a thin  sheet  of 
water.  A rice  field  must,  therefore,  be  level  and 
enclosed  by  a low  dyke.  Where  the  climate  is 
friendly  the  amount  of  labor  that  will  be  spent  in 
digging  a slope  into  rice-fields  and  carrying  a 
stream  to  them  is  beyond  belief.  In  one  case  I 
noticed  how  a deep-notched  rocky  ravine  in  the 
flank  of  a rugged  mountain  had  been  completely 
transformed.  The  peasants  had  brought  down 
countless  basketfuls  of  soil  from  certain  pockets 
at  the  foot  of  the  cliffs.  With  this  they  had  filled 
the  bottom  of  the  V,  floated  it  into  a series  of 
levels,  banked  them,  set  them  out  with  rice  and 
led  the  water  over  them.  So  that  now  instead  of 
a barren  gulch  there  is  a staircase  of  curving 
fields,  perhaps  four  rods  wide  and  differing  in 
level  by  the  height  of  a man.  I have  also  seen 
the  sides  of  a gully  in  which  a child  could  not  stand 
undiscovered  cut  into  shelves  for  making  a string 
of  rice  plots  no  larger  than  a table-cloth,  irrigated 
by  a trickle  no  bigger  than  a baby’s  finger.  One 
of  these  toy  plots,  duly  banked  and  set  out  with 
nineteen  rice  plants  at  the  regulation  eight  inches, 
could  be  covered  by  a dinner  napkin ! 

Were  it  not  for  an  agriculture  of  infinite  pains- 
taking, the  fertility  of  the  soil  would  have  been 
spent  ages  ago.  In  a low-lying  region  like 
Kiangsu,  for  example,  the  farmer  digs  an  oblong 
settling  basin  into  which  every  part  of  his  farm 


78 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


drains.  In  the  spring  from  its  bottom  he  scoops 
for  fertilizer  the  rich  muck  washed  from  his  fields. 
It  is  true  the  overflow  from  this  pond  carries  away 
some  precious  elements,  but  these  he  recovers  by 
dredging  the  private  canal  that  connects  him  with 
the  main  artery  of  the  district.  In  the  loess  belt 
of  North  China  the  farmer  simply  digs  a pit  in 
the  midst  of  his  field  and  scatters  the  yellow  earth 
from  it  as  a manure.  A Chinese  city  has  no 
sewers  nor  does  it  greatly  need  them.  Long  be- 
fore sunrise  tank-boats  from  the  farms  have  crept 
through  the  city  by  a network  of  canals,  and  by 
the  time  the  foreigner  has  finished  his  morning 
coffee  a legion  of  scavengers  has  collected  for  the 
encouragement  of  the  crops  that  which  we  cast 
into  our  sewers.  After  a rain  countrymen  with 
buckets  prowl  about  the  streets  scooping  black 
mud  out  of  hollows  and  gutters  or  dipping  liquid 
filth  from  the  wayside  sinks.  A highway  trav- 
ersed by  two  hundred  carts  a day  is  as  free  from 
filth  as  a garden  path,  for  the  neighboring 
farmers  patrol  it  constantly  with  basket  and  rake. 

No  natural  resource  is  too  trifling  to  be  turned 
to  account  by  a teeming  population.  The  sea  is 
raked  and  strained  for  edible  plunder.  Sea- 
weed and  kelp  have  a place  in  the  larder.  Great 
quantities  of  shell-fish  no  bigger  than  one’s  finger- 
nail are  opened  and  made  to  yield  a food  that  finds 
its  way  far  inland.  The  fungus  that  springs  up 
in  the  grass  after  a rain  is  eaten.  Fried  sweet 
potato  vines  furnish  the  poor  man’s  table.  The 
roadside  ditches  are  bailed  out  for  the  sake  of 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  79 


fishes  no  longer  than  one’s  finger.  Great  pan- 
niers of  strawberries,  half  of  them  still  green, 
are  collected  in  the  mountain  ravines  and  offered 
in  the  markets.  No  weed  nor  stalk  escapes  the 
bamboo  rake  of  the  autumnal  fuel  gatherer. 
The  sickle  reaps  the  grain  close  to  the  ground, 
for  straw  and  chaff  are  needed  to  burn  un- 
der the  rice  kettle.  The  leaves  of  the  trees 
are  a crop  to  be  carefully  gathered  by  the  chil- 
dren. One  never  sees  a rotting  stump  or  a molder- 
ing  log.  Bundles  of  brush  carried  miles  on  the  hu- 
man back  heat  the  brick  kiln  and  the  potter’s 
furnace.  After  the  last  trees  have  been  taken, 
the  far  and  forbidding  heights  are  scaled  by  lads 
with  ax  and  mattock  to  cut  down  or  dig  up  the 
seedlings  that  would,  if  left  alone,  reclothe  the 
devastated  ridges.  We  asked  a Szechuanese  if 
he  did  not  admire  a certain  craggy  peak  with 
gnarled  pines  clinging  to  it.  “No,”  he  replied, 
“how  can  it  be  beautiful  when  it  is  so  steep  that 
we  cannot  get  at  the  trees  to  cut  them  down?” 
Such  facts  helped  me  understand  why  a match 
from  the  native  factories  at  Taiyuanfu  and 
Sianfu  has  in  it  perhaps  a third  as  much  wood  as 
one  of  our  matches. 

The  cuisine  of  China  is  one  of  the  toothsome 
cuisines  of  the  world ; but  for  the  common  people 
the  stomach  and  not  the  palate  decides  what  shall 
be  food.  The  silkworms  are  eaten  after  the 
cocoon  has  been  unwound  from  them.  After 
their  work  is  done  horses,  donkeys,  mules,  and 
camels  become  butcher’s  meat.  The  cow  or  pig 


80  THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 

that  has  died  a natural  death  is  not  disdained. 
A missionary  who  had  always  let  his  cook  dispose 
of  a dead  calf  noticed  that  his  calves  always  died. 
Finally  he  saturated  the  carcass  of  the  calf  with 
carbolic  acid  and  made  the  cook  bury  it.  There- 
after his  calves  lived.  In  Canton  rats  and  cats 
are  exposed  for  sale.  Our  boatmen  cleaned  and 
ate  the  head,  feet,  and  entrails  of  the  fowls  used 
by  our  cook.  Scenting  a possible  opening  for  a 
tannery,  the  Governor  of  Hong  Kong  once  set  on 
foot  an  inquiry  as  to  what  becomes  of  the  skins 
of  the  innumerable  pigs  slaughtered  in  the  colony. 
He  learned  that  they  are  all  made  up  as  “marine 
delicacy”  and  sold  among  the  Chinese.  Another 
time  he  was  on  the  point  of  ordering  the  extermi- 
nation of  the  mangy  curs  that  infest  the  villages 
in  the  Kowloon  district  because  they  harassed 
the  Sikh  policemen  in  the  performance  of  their 
duties.  He  found  just  in  time  that  such  an  act 
would  “interfere  with  the  food  of  the  people,” 
something  a British  colonial  governor  must  never 
do. 

Though  the  farmer  thriftily  combs  his  harvest 
field,  every  foot  of  the  short  stubble  is  gone  over 
again  by  poor  women  and  children,  who  are  con- 
tent if  in  a day’s  gleaning  they  can  gather  a 
handful  of  wheat  heads  to  keep  them  alive  the 
morrow.  On  the  Hong  Kong  water  front  the  path 
of  the  coolies  carrying  produce  between  ware- 
house and  junk  is  lined  with  tattered  women, 
most  of  them  with  a baby  on  the  back.  Where 
bags  of  beans  or  rice  are  in  transit  a dozen  wait 


Junk  on  the  Yangtse 


Fishing  with  cormorant* 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  83 


with  basket  and  brush  to  sweep  np  the  grains 
dropped  from  the  sacks.  On  a wharf  where  crude 
sugar  is  being  repacked  squat  sixty  women  scrap- 
ing the  inside  of  the  discarded  sacks,  while  others 
run  by  the  bearer,  if  his  sack  leaks  a little,  to 
catch  the  particles  as  they  fall.  Where  sugar  is 
being  unloaded,  a mob  of  gleaners  swarm  upon 
the  lighter  the  moment  the  last  sack  leaves  and 
eagerly  scrape  from  the  gang-plank  and  the  deck 
the  sugar  mixed  with  dirt  that  for  two  hours  has 
been  trampled  into  a muck  by  the  bare  feet  of 
two  score  coolies  trotting  back  and  forth  across 
a dusty  road ! 

The  pilferings  one  hears  of  are  hardly  less 
significant  than  are  the  gleanings.  The  Peking- 
Hankow  Railway  complains  of  the  nightly  theft 
of  ringbolts  and  plates;  no  fewer  than  60,000 
bolts  a month  and  10,000  plates  per  annum  dis- 
appear, to  be  made  into  razors  and  scissors,  hoes 
and  ploughshares.  The  cook  will  extract  half  its 
strength  from  soup  meat  and  then  sell  it  through 
his  window  to  an  itinerant  food  vender.  From 
the  daily  drawing  of  tea  given  him  he  will  ab- 
stract a few  leaves  and  hide  them.  When  he  has 
accumulated  a pound  he  will  get  the  dealer  to  de- 
liver this  pound  and  give  him  part  of  the  money 
his  mistress  pays  for  the  stolen  pound.  Even 
the  old  hair  that  hangs  in  tatters  from  the  camels 
when  they  are  changing  their  coat  is  subject  to 
theft. 

Haunted  by  the  fear  of  starving,  men  spend 
themselves  recklessly  for  the  sake  of  a wage.  It 


84 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


is  true  that  the  Chinese  are  still  in  the  handicraft 
stage  and  the  artisans  one  sees  busy  on  their 
own  account  in  the  little  workshops  along  the 
street  go  their  own  gait.  The  smiths  in  iron,  tin, 
copper,  brass  and  silver,  the  carvers  of  ivory, 
amber,  tortoise-shell,  onyx  and  jade,  the  workers 
in  wood,  rattan,  lacquer,  wax,  and  feathers,  the 
weavers  of  linen,  cotton,  and  silk  seem,  in  spite 
of  their  long  hours,  less  breathless  and  driven, 
less  prodigal  in  their  expenditure  of  life  energy, 
than  many  of  the  operatives  in  our  machine  in- 
dustries who  feel  the  spur  of  piece  wage,  team 
work,  and  “speeding  up.”  Still,  it  is  obvious 
that  in  certain  occupations  men  are  literally  kill- 
ing themselves  by  their  exertions.  The  treadmill- 
coolies  who  propel  the  stern-wheelers  on  the  West 
River  admittedly  shorten  their  lives.  Nearly  all 
the  lumber  used  in  China  is  hand-sawed,  and  the 
sawyers  are  exhausted  early.  The  planers  of 
boards,  the  marble  polishers,  the  brass  filers,  the 
cotton  Suffers,  the  treaders  who  work  the  big 
rice-polishing  pestles  are  building  their  coffins. 
Physicians  agree  that  carrying  coolies  rarely  live 
beyond  forty-five  or  fifty  years.  The  term  of  a 
chair-bearer  is  eight  years,  of  a ricksha  runner 
four  years;  for  the  rest  of  his  life  he  is  an  in- 
valid. Moreover,  carriers  and  chair-bearers  are 
afflicted  with  varicose  veins  and  aneurisms  be- 
cause the  constant  tension  of  the  muscles  inter- 
feres with  the  return  circulation  of  the  blood.  A 
lady  physician  in  Fokien  who  had  examined  some 
scores  of  carrying  coolies  told  me  she  found  but 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  85 


two  who  were  free  from  the  heart  trouble  caused 
by  burden-bearing. 

In  Canton,  city  of  a million  without  a wheel  or 
a beast  of  burden,  even  the  careless  eye  marks  in 
the  porters  that  throng  the  streets  the  plain  signs 
of  overstrain:  faces  pale  and  haggard,  with  the 
drawn  and  flat  look  of  utter  exhaustion ; eyes  pain- 
pinched,  or  astare  and  unseeing  with  supreme  ef- 
fort; jaw  sagging  and  mouth  open  from  weariness. 
The  dog  trot,  the  whistling  breath,  the  clenched 
teeth,  the  streaming  face  of  those  under  a burden 
of  one  to  two  hundredweight  that  must  be  borne 
are  as  eloquent  of  ebbing  life  as  a jetting  artery. 
At  rest  the  porter  often  leans  or  droops  with  a 
corpse-like  sag  that  betrays  utter  depletion  of  vital 
energy.  In  a few  years  the  face  becomes  a 
wrinkled,  pain-stiffened  mask,  the  veins  of  the 
upper  leg  stand  out  like  great  cords,  a frightful 
net  of  varicose  veins  blemishes  the  calf,  lumps 
appear  at  the  back  of  the  neck  or  down  the  spine, 
and  the  shoulders  are  covered  with  thick  pads  of 
callous  under  a livid  skin.  Inevitably  the  chil- 
dren of  the  people  are  drawn  into  these  cogs  at 
the  age  of  ten  or  twelve,  and  not  one  boy  in  eight 
can  be  spared  till  he  has  learned  to  read. 

There  are  a number  of  miscellaneous  facts  that 
hint  how  close  the  masses  live  to  the  edge  of  sub- 
sistence. The  brass  cash,  the  most  popular  coin 
in  China,  is  worth  the  twentieth  of  a cent ; but  as 
this  has  been  found  too  valuable  to  meet  all  the 
needs  of  the  people,  oblong  bits  of  bamboo  circu- 
late in  some  provinces  at  the  value  of  half  a cash. 


86 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


A Western  firm  that  wishes  to  entice  the  masses 
with  its  wares  must  make  a grade  of  extra  cheap- 
ness for  the  China  trade.  The  British-American 
Tobacco  Company  puts  up  a package  of  twenty 
cigarettes  that  sells  for  two  cents.  The  Stand- 
ard Oil  Company  sells  by  the  million  a lamp  that 
costs  eleven  cents  and  retails,  chimney  and  all,  for 
eight-and-a-half  cents.  It  is  a curious  fact,  by 
the  way,  that  the  oil  of  its  rival,  the  Asiatic  Oil 
Company,  does  not  burn  well  in  this  cunningly 
devised  lamp ! Incredibly  small  are  the  portions 
prepared  for  sale  by  the  huckster.  Two  cubic 
inches  of  bean  curd,  four  walnuts,  five  peanuts, 
fifteen  roasted  beans,  twenty  melon  seeds — make 
a portion.  The  melon  vender’s  stand  is  decked 
out  with  wedges  of  insipid  melon  the  size  of  two 
fingers.  The  householder  leaves  the  butcher’s 
stall  with  a morsel  of  pork,  the  pluck  of  a fowl 
and  a strip  of  fish  as  big  as  a sardine,  tied  together 
with  a blade  of  grass.  In  Anhwei  the  query  cor- 
responding to  “How  do  you  make  your  living?” 
is  “How  do  you  get  through  the  day?”  On  tak- 
ing leave  of  his  host  it  is  manners  for  the  guest  to 
thank  him  expressly  for  the  food  he  has  provided. 
Careful  observers  say  that  four-fifths  of  the  con- 
versation among  the  common  Chinese  relates  to 
food. 

Comfort  is  scarce  as  well  as  food.  The  city 
coolie  sleeps  on  a plank  in  an  airless  kennel  on 
a filthy  lane  with  a block  for  a pillow  and  a quilt 
for  a cover.  When  in  a South  China  hospital  all 
the  beds  were  provided  with  springs  and  mat- 


What  passes  for  a public  highway  A common  carrier 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  89 


tresses  supplied  by  a philanthropic  American,  all 
the  patients  were  found  next  morning  sleeping 
on  the  floor.  After  being  used  to  boards  covered 
with  a mat  they  could  not  get  their  proper  slumber 
on  a soft  bed. 

Necessity  makes  the  wits  fertile  in  devising  new 
ways  of  earning  a living.  I have  heard  of  persons 
keeping  themselves  alive  by  hiring  themselves  to 
incubate  hen’s  eggs  by  their  bodily  warmth.  In 
some  localities  people  place  about  the  floors  of 
their  sleeping  and  living  rooms  flea  traps,  i.  e.,  tiny 
joints  of  bamboo  with  a bit  of  aromatic  glue  at 
the  bottom  which  attracts  and  holds  fast  the 
vermin.  Recently  in  Szechuan — where  there  is  a 
proverb,  “The  sooner  you  get  a son  the  sooner 
you  get  happiness” — some  wight  has  been  enter- 
prising enough  to  begin  going  about  from  house  to 
house  cleaning  the  dead  fleas  and  dried  glue  from 
the  traps  and  recharging  them  with  fresh  glue. 
For  this  service  he  charges  each  house  one- 
twentieth  of  a cent. 

The  great  number  hanging  on  to  existence  “by 
the  eyelashes”  and  dropping  into  the  abyss  at  a 
gossamer’s  touch  cheapens  life.  “ Yan  to  meng 
ping “Many  men,  life  cheap,”  reply  the  West 
River  watermen  when  reproached  for  leaving  a 
sick  comrade  on  the  foreshore  to  die.  In  a 
thronged  six-foot  street  I beheld  a shriveled,  hor- 
ribly twisted  leper  prone  on  his  back  hitching  him- 
self along  sideways  inch  by  inch  and  imploring 
the  by-passers  to  drop  alms  into  his  basket.  It 
contained  four  cash!  In  the  leper  village  of 


90 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


Canton  the  government  furnishes  two  cents  a day 
which  will  buy  two  bowls  of  cooked  rice.  For 
their  other  needs  they  must  beg.  Ax  and  bamboo 
are  retained  and  prison  reform  is  halted  by  the 
consideration  that,  unless  the  way  of  the  trans- 
gressor is  made  flinty,  there  are  people  miserable 
enough  to  commit  crime  for  the  bare  sake  of 
prison  fare.  Not  long  ago  the  Commissioner  of 
Customs  at  a great  South-China  port — a foreigner, 
of  course — impressed  by  the  fact  that  every 
summer  the  bubonic  plague  there  carried  off  about 
ten  thousand  Chinese,  planned  a rigid  quarantine 
against  those  ports  from  which  the  plague  was 
liable  to  be  brought.  When  he  sought  the  co- 
operation of  the  Chinese  authorities,  the  taotai 
objected  on  the  ground  that  there  were  too  many 
Chinese  anyway,  and  that,  by  thinning  them  out 
and  making  room  for  the  rest,  the  plague  was 
a blessing  in  disguise.  The  project  was  dropped 
and  last  summer  again  the  plague  ravaged  the 
city  like  a fire.  But  the  taotai  was  not  unreason- 
able. After  all,  it  is  better  to  die  quickly  by 
plague  than  slowly  by  starvation;  and,  as  things 
now  are,  if  fewer  Chinese  perish  by  disease  more 
would  be  swept  away  by  famine. 

In  a press  so  desperate,  if  a man  stumbles  he 
is  not  likely  to  get  up  again.  I have  heard  of 
several  cases  where  an  employe  dismissed  for 
incompetence  or  fault  returned  starving  again  and 
again,  because  nowhere  could  he  find  work.  In 
China  you  should  move  slowly  in  getting  rid  of 
an  incompetent.  Ruthless  dismissal,  such  as  we 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  91 


tolerate,  is  bitterly  resented  and  leads  to  extreme 
unpopularity.  Again,  no  one  attempts  to  stand 
alone,  seeing  tbe  lone  man  is  almost  sure  to  go 
under.  The  son  of  Han  dares  not  cut  himself  off 
from  his  family,  his  clan,  or  his  guild,  for  they 
throw  him  the  life-line  by  which  he  can  pull  him- 
self up  if  his  foot  slips.  Students  in  the  schools 
are  strong  in  mass  action — strikes,  walkouts,  etc., 
— for  their  action,  however  silly  or  perverse,  is 
always  unanimous.  The  sensible  lad  never  thinks 
of  holding  out  against  the  folly  of  his  fellows. 
The  whole  bidding  of  his  experience  has  been, 
“Conform  or  starve.”  Likewise  no  duty  is  im- 
pressed like  that  of  standing  by  your  kinsmen. 
The  official,  the  arsenal  superintendent,  or  the 
business  manager  of  a college,  when  he  divides 
the  jobs  within  his  gift  among  his  poor  relations, 
is  obeying  the  most  imperative  ethics  he  knows. 

It  is  an  axiom  with  the  Chinese  that  anything 
is  better  than  a fight.  They  urge  compromise  even 
upon  the  wronged  man  and  blame  him  who  con- 
tends stubbornly  for  all  his  rights.  This  dread 
of  having  trouble  is  reasonable  under  their  cir- 
cumstances. When  a boat  is  so  crowded  that  the 
gunwale  is  scarce  a hand’s  breadth  above  the 
water,  a scuffle  must  be  avoided  at  all  costs,  and 
each  is  expected  to  put  up  with  a great  deal  be- 
fore breaking  the  peace. 

In  their  outlook  on  life  most  Chinese  are  rank 
materialists.  They  ply  the  stranger  with  ques- 
tions as  to  his  income,  his  means,  the  cost  of  his 
belongings.  They  cannily  offer  paper  money  in- 


92 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


stead  of  real  money  at  the  graves  of  their  dead, 
and  sacrifice  paper  images  of  the  valuables  that 
once  were  burned  in  the  funeral  pyre.  They  pray 
only  for  material  benefits,  never  for  spiritual  bless- 
ings ; and  they  compare  shrewdly  the  luck-bring- 
ing powers  of  different  josses  and  altars.  Some 
sorry  little  backwoods  shrine  will  get  a reputation 
for  answering  prayer  and  presently  there  will  be 
half  a cord  of  gratitude  tablets  heaped  about  it, 
testimonials  to  its  success.  If  a drouth  continues 
after  fervent  prayers  for  rain,  the  resentful  peo- 
ple smash  the  idol ! Yet  no  one  who  comes  into 
close  touch  with  the  Chinese  deems  this  utilitarian- 
ism a race  trait.  They  are  capable  of  the  highest 
idealism.  Among  the  few  who  have  come  near  to 
the  thought  of  Buddha  or  Jesus  one  finds  faces 
saintlike  in  their  glow  of  spirituality.  The 
materialism  is  imposed  by  hard  economic  con- 
ditions. It  is  the  product  of  an  age-long  anxiety 
about  to-morrow’s  rice  and  not  to  be  counter- 
acted by  the  influence  of  the  petty  proportion 
whose  circumstances  lift  them  above  sordid  anx- 
ieties. 

Contrary  to  the  theory  of  certain  sociologists 
this  intensified  struggle  for  life  has  no  perceptible 
effect  in  promoting  economic  or  social  improve- 
ment. It  is  a static  rather  than  a dynamic  in- 
fluence. It  makes  for  exertion  and  strain  but  not 
for  progress  because  the  prime  means  of  progress 
are  inventions  and  discoveries,  and  it  is  just  these 
that  bond-slaves  to  poverty,  under  the  stress  of  the 
struggle  to  keep  alive,  are  not  able  to  bring  forth. 


One  of  the  three  life-boats  that 
escorted  us  through  the  gorges 


An  ancient  mariner 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  95 


Most  of  the  stock  explanations  of  national 
poverty  throw  no  light  on  the  condition  of 
the  Chinese.  They  are  not  impoverished  by  the 
niggardliness  of  the  soil,  for  China  is  one  of 
the  most  bountiful  seats  occupied  by  man.  Their 
state  is  not  the  just  recompense  of  sloth,  for  no 
people  is  better  broken  to  heavy,  unremitting  toil. 
The  trouble  is  not  lack  of  intelligence  in  their 
work,  for  they  are  skilful  farmers  and  clever  in 
the  arts  and  crafts.  Nor  have  they  been  dragged 
down  into  their  pit  of  wolfish  competition  by  waste- 
ful vices.  Opium-smoking  and  gambling  do,  in- 
deed, ruin  many  a home,  but  it  is  certain  that, 
even  for  untainted  families  and  communities,  the 
plane  of  living  is  far  lower  than  in  the  West. 
They  are  not  victims  of  the  rapacity  of  their 
rulers,  for  if  their  government  does  little  for  them, 
it  exacts  little.  In  good  times  its  fiscal  claims  are 
far  from  crushing.  With  four  times  our  numbers 
the  national  budget  is  a fifth  of  ours.  The  basic 
conditions  of  prosperity — liberty  of  person  and 
security  of  property — are  well  established.  There 
is,  to  be  sure,  no  security  for  industrial  invest- 
ments ; but  property  in  land  and  in  goods  is  reason- 
ably well  protected.  Nor  is  the  lot  of  the  masses 
due  to  exploitation.  In  the  cities  there  is  a sprin- 
kling of  rich,  but  out  in  the  province  one  may 
travel  for  weeks  and  see  no  sign  of  a wealthy  class 
— no  mansion  or  fine  country  place,  no  costume 
or  equipage  befitting  the  rich.  There  are  great 
stretches  of  fertile  agricultural  country  where  the 
struggle  for  subsistence  is  stern  and  yet  the  culti- 


96 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


vator  owns  liis  land  and  implements  and  pays 
tribute  to  no  man. 

For  a grinding  mass  poverty  that  cannot  he 
matched  in  the  Occident  there  remains  hut  one 
general  cause,  namely,  the  crowding  of  population 
upon  the  means  of  subsistence.  Why  this  people 
should  so  behave  more  than  other  peoples,  why 
this  gifted  race  should  so  recklessly  multiply  as 
to  condemn  itself  to  a sordid  struggle  for  a bare 
existence  can  be  understood  only  when  one  un- 
derstands the  constitution  of  the  Chinese  family. 

It  is  believed  that  unless  twice  a year  certain 
rites  are  performed  and  paper  money  is  burned 
at  a man’s  grave  by  a male  descendant,  his  spirit 
and  the  spirits  of  his  fathers  will  wander  forlorn 
in  the  spirit  world  “begging  rice”  of  other  spirits. 
Hence  Mencius  taught  “there  are  three  things 
which  are  unfilial ; and  to  have  no  posterity  is  the 
greatest  of  them.”  It  is  a man’s  first  concern, 
therefore,  to  assure  the  succession  in  the  male  line. 
He  not  only  wants  a number  of  sons,  but — since  life 
is  not  long  in  China  and  the  making  of  a suitable 
match  for  a son  is  the  parent’s  prerogative — he 
wants  to  see  his  son  settled  as  soon  as  possible. 
Before  his  son  is  twenty-one  he  provides  him  with 
a wife  as  a matter  of  course,  and  the  young  couple 
live  with  him  till  the  son  can  fend  for  himself. 
There  is  none  of  our  feeling  that  a young  man 
should  not  marry  till  he  can  support  a family. 
This  wholesome  pecuniary  check  on  reproduction 
seems  wholly  wanting.  The  son’s  marriage  is 
the  parents’  affair,  not  his;  for  they  pick  the  girl 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  97 


and  provide  the  home.  In  the  colleges  one  out  of 
twenty  or  ten,  but  sometimes  even  one  out  of  five 
of  the  students  is  married,  and  not  infrequently 
there  are  fathers  among  the  members  of  the  gradu- 
ating class. 

As  the  bride  must  be  younger  than  the  groom, 
early  marriage  for  sons  makes  early  marriage 
for  daughters.  The  average  age  of  Chinese  girls 
at  marriage  appears  to  be  sixteen  or  seventeen 
years,  although  some  put  it  at  fifteen.  In  the  cities 
reached  by  foreign  influence,  the  age  has  advanced. 
In  Peking  it  is  said  to  be  eighteen,  in  Shanghai 
twenty,  in  Wuchow  twenty,  in  Swatow  sixteen  to 
eighteen,  in  Chungking  seventeen  or  eighteen 
where  formerly  it  was  fourteen  or  fifteen. 
Schooling,  too,  postpones  marriage  to  about 
twenty,  but  not  one  girl  in  two  thousand  is  in  a 
grammar  school.  About  two  years  ago  the  Board 
of  Education  at  Peking  ruled  that  students  in  the 
government  schools  should  not  marry  under 
twenty  in  the  case  of  girls  and  twenty-two  in  the 
case  of  boys. 

At  twenty  practically  all  girls,  save  prostitutes, 
are  wives  and  five-sixths  of  the  young  men  are 
husbands.  This  means  that  in  the  Orient  the 
generations  come  at  least  a third  closer  together 
than  they  do  in  the  Occident.  Even  if  their 
average  family  were  no  larger  than  ours,  they 
can  outbreed  us,  for  they  get  in  four  generations 
while  we  are  rearing  three.  But  their  families 
are  larger  because  their  production  of  children  is 
not  affected  by  certain  considerations  which  weigh 

5 


98 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


with  us.  Clan  ties  are  so  strong  that  if  a poor 
man  cannot  feed  his  children  he  can  get  fellow 
clansmen  to  adopt  some  of  them.  Thanks  to  an- 
cestor worship  and  to  reliance  on  sons  for  support 
in  old  age,  there  is  a great  deal  more  adopting 
than  we  can  imagine.  In  fact,  the  demand  for 
boys  to  be  adopted  by  couples  who  have  no  son  has 
been  eager  enough  to  call  into  being  a brisk  kid- 
napping trade  that  is  giving  trouble  to  the 
Shanghai  authorities.  Then  there  are  funds  left 
by  bygone  clansmen  for  the  relief  of  necessitous 
members.  These  stimulate  procreative  reckless- 
ness precisely  as  did  the  parish  relief  guaranteed 
under  the  old  Poor  Law  of  England. 

The  burden  of  the  child  on  the  parent  is  lighter 
than  with  us,  while  the  benefit  expected  from  the 
male  child  is  much  greater.  Lacking  our  op- 
portunities for  saving  and  investment,  the  Chinese 
rely  upon  the  earnings  of  their  sons  to  keep  them 
in  their  old  age.  A man  looks  upon  his  sons  as  his 
old  age  pension.  A girl  baby  may  be  drowned 
or  sold,  a boy  never.  In  a society  so  patriarchal 
that  a teacher  forty  years  old  with  a family  still 
turns  over  his  monthly  salary  to  his  father  as  a 
matter  of  common  duty,  the  parents  of  one  son 
are  pitied  while  the  parents  of  many  sons  are 
congratulated. 

Moreover,  the  very  atmosphere  of  China  is 
charged  with  appreciation  of  progeny.  From 
time  immemorial  the  things  considered  most 
worth  while  have  been  posterity,  learning  and 
riches — in  the  order  named.  This  judgment  of 


Braving  the  Yangtse  flood.  Clift'  swallows' 
nests  at  Chungking 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  101 


a remote  epoch  when  there  was  room  for  all  sur- 
vives into  a time  when  the  land  groans  under 
its  burden  of  population.  So  a man  is  still  envied 
for  the  number  of  descendants  in  the  male  line 
who  will  walk  in  his  funeral  train.  Grandchil- 
dren, and,  still  more,  great-grandchildren,  are 
counted  the  especial  blessing  of  heaven. 

Hence  a veritable  passion  to  have  offspring — 
more  offspring — as  many  as  possible.  In  Kuang- 
tung  I am  told  that  the  women  are  so  eager  for 
many  children  that  they  place  their  suckling  with 
a wet  nurse  so  as  to  shorten  the  interval  between 
conceptions.  In  the  West  there  are  plenty  of  par- 
ents willing  to  unload  their  superfluous  children 
upon  an  institution,  whereas  a Chinese  parent 
never  gives  up  a male  child  till  he  is  in  sore  straits 
and  reclaims  it  the  moment  he  is  able.  The  boy 
is  a partly-paid-up  old  age  endowment  policy 
that  shall  not  lapse  if  he  can  help  it.  What  chil- 
dren’s  home  with  us  would  dare  undertake,  as 
does  the  Asile  de  la  Sainte  Enfance  among  320,- 
000  Chinese  in  Hong  Kong,  to  care  for  all  children 
offered  and  to  give  them  back  at  the  parents  ’ con- 
venience ? 

With  us  a rich  man  may  not  lawfully  beget 
and  rear  more  children  than  one  wife  can  bear 
him.  In  China,  however,  the  concubine  has  a legal 
status,  her  issue  is  legitimate  and  a man  may  con- 
tribute to  the  population  his  children  by  as  many 
women  as  he  cares  to  take  to  himself.  With  us 
one-sixth  of  the  women  between  thirty  and  thirty- 
five  are  unmarried,  while  in  China  not  one  woman 


102 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


in  a thousand  remains  a spinster,  so  that  nearly 
all  the  female  reproductive  capacity  of  each  gen- 
eration is  utilized  in  child  bearing. 

Thus  all  things  conspire  to  encourage  the 
Chinese  to  multiply  freely  without  paying  heed  to 
the  economic  prospect.  Their  domestic  system  is 
a snare,  yet  no  Malthus  has  ever  startled  China 
out  of  her  deep  satisfaction  with  her  domestic  sys- 
tem. She  believes  that,  whatever  may  be  wrong 
with  her,  her  family  is  all  right;  and  dreams  of 
teaching  the  anarchic  West  filial  piety  and  true 
propriety  in  the  relations  of  the  sexes.  It  has 
never  occurred  to  the  thinkers  of  the  yellow  race 
that  the  rate  of  multiplication  is  one  of  the  great 
factors  in  determining  the  plane  on  which  the 
masses  live.  Point  out  this  axiom  of  political 
economy  to  a scholar  and  he  meets  it  with  such 
comforting  saws  as,  “One  more  bowlful  out  of 
a big  rice  tub  makes  no  difference,”  “There  is 
always  food  for  a chicken,”  “The  only  son  will 
starve”  (i.e.,  will  be  a ne’er-do-well).  Or  he  may 
argue  that  there  can  be  no  relation  between  density 
and  poverty  by  citing  big  villages  in  which  people 
are  better  off  than  in  neighboring  little  villages ! 

If  people  will  blindly  breed  when  there  is  no 
longer  room  to  raise  more  food,  the  penalty  must 
fall  somewhere.  The  deaths  will  somehow  con- 
trive to  balance  the  births.  It  is  a mercy  that  in 
China  the  strain  comes  in  the  years  of  infancy,  in- 
stead of  later  on  dragging  down  great  numbers 
of  adults  into  a state  of  semi-starvation  until  they 
are  thinned  out  sufficiently.  The  mortality  among 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  103 


infants  is  well-nigh  incredible.  This  woman  has 
borne  eleven  children,  and  all  are  dead;  that  one 
is  the  mother  of  seven,  all  dying  young ; another 
has  only  two  left  out  of  eleven,  another,  four  left 
out  of  twelve.  Such  were  the  cases  that  occurred 
offhand  to  my  informants.  One  missionary  can- 
vassed his  district  and  found  that  nine  children 
out  of  ten  never  gvew  up.  Dr.  McCartney  of 
Chungking,  after  twenty  years  of  practice  there, 
estimates  that  seventy-five  to  eighty-five  per  cent, 
of  the  children  born  in  that  region  die  before  the 
end  of  the  second  year.  The  returns  from  Hong 
Kong  for  1909  show  that  the  number  of  children 
dying  under  one  year  of  age  is  eighty-seven  per 
cent,  of  the  number  of  births  reported  within  the 
year.  The  first  census  of  the  Japanese  in  For- 
mosa seems  to  show  that  nearly  half  of  the  chil- 
dren bom  to  the  Chinese  there  die  within  six 
months. 

Not  all  this  appalling  loss  is  the  result  of 
poverty.  The  proportion  of  weakly  infants  is 
large,  probably  owing  to  the  immaturity  of  the 
mothers.  The  use  of  milk  is  unknown  in  China 
and  so  the  babe  that  cannot  be  suckled  is  doomed. 
Even  when  it  can,  the  ignorant  mother  starts  it 
too  early  on  adult  food.  In  some  parts  they  kill 
many  by  stuffing  the  mouth  of  the  tender  infant 
with  a certain  indigestible  cake.  The  slaughter 
of  the  innocents  by  mothers  who  know  nothing  of 
how  to  care  for  the  child  is  ghastly.  And  yet 
so  necessary  is  this  loss  in  order  to  keep  numbers 
down  to  the  food  supply  that  more  than  one  phy- 


104 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


sician  endorsed  the  remark  of  a medical  mis- 
sionary: that  the  doctor  who  should  get  these 
mothers  together  and  teach  them  how  to  save  their 
babies  would  be  assuming  a very  grave  responsi- 
bility ! 

Still,  much  of  the  child  mortality  is  the  direct 
consequence  of  economic  pressure.  A girl  is  only 
a burden,  for  she  marries  before  she  is  of  use  to 
her  parents  and  is  lost  into  her  husband’s  family. 
Only  in  default  of  male  children  may  she  invite  her 
parents  to  live  with  her  husband  and  herself. 
Small  wonder,  then,  that  not  infrequently  the 
female  infant  is  murdered  at  birth.  Again,  when 
the  family  is  already  large,  the  parents  despair  of 
raising  the  child  and  it  perishes  from  neglect.  In 
Hupeh  a man  explaining  that  two  of  his  children 
have  died  will  say:  “Tiu  lio  Hang  ko  hai  tsi,”  “I 
have  been  relieved  of  two  children.”  Another 
factor  is  lack  of  sufficient  good  food,  which  also 
makes  so  many  children  very  small  for  their  age. 
The  heavy  losses  from  measles,  and  scarlet  fever, 
are  closely  connected  with  overcrowding. 

For  adults  overpopulation  not  only  spells  priva- 
tion and  drudgery,  but  it  means  a life  averaging 
about  fifteen  years  shorter  than  ours.  Small 
wonder,  indeed,  for  in  some  places  human  beings 
are  so  thick  the  earth  is  literally  foul  from  them. 
Unwittingly  they  poison  the  ground,  they  poison 
the  water,  they  poison  the  air,  they  poison  the 
growing  crops.  And  while  most  of  them  have 
enough  to  eat,  little  has  been  reserved  from  the 
sordid  food  quest.  Here  are  people  with  stand- 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  105 


ards,  unquestionably  civilized — peaceable,  indus- 
trious, filial,  polite,  faithful  to  their  contracts,  heed- 
ful of  the  rights  of  others.  Yet  their  lives  are 
dreary  and  squalid  for  most  of  their  margins  have 
been  swept  into  the  hopper  for  the  production  of 
population.  Two  coarse  blue  cotton  garments 
clothe  them.  In  summer  the  children  go  naked 
and  the  men  strip  to  the  waist.  Thatched  mud 
hut,  no  chimney,  smoke-blackened  walls,  unglazed 
windows,  rude  unpainted  stools,  a grimy  table,  a 
dirt  floor  where  the  pig  and  the  fowls  dispute 
for  scraps,  for  bed  a mud  kang  with  a frazzled  mat 
on  it.  No  woods,  grass,  nor  flowers;  no  wood 
floors,  carpets,  curtains,  wall-paper,  table-cloths 
nor  ornaments;  no  books,  pictures,  newspapers, 
nor  musical  instruments;  no  sports  nor  amuse- 
ments, few  festivals  or  social  gatherings.  But 
everywhere  children,  naked,  sprawling,  squirming, 
crawling,  tumbling  in  the  dust — the  one  possession 
of  which  the  poorest  family  has  an  abundance,  and 
to  which  other  possessions  and  interests  are  fa- 
natically sacrificed. 

In  a census  paragraph  my  eye  catches  the 
report  of  the  headmen  for  a country  district 
of  eleven  square  miles  in  Anhwei.  They  re- 
turn 14,000  souls,  nearly  1,200  to  the  square 
mile  or  two  to  the  acre.  Despite  its  quantity 
of  waste  land  Shantung  seems  to  have  700  to 
the  square  mile.  Yet  it  would  be  an  error  to 
assume  that  at  any  given  moment  all  parts 
of  China  are  saturated  with  people.  In  Shansi 
thirty-odd  years  ago  seven-tenths  of  the  in- 


106 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


habitants  perished  from  famine,  and  the  vacant 
spaces  and  the  crumbling  walls  that  meet  the 
eye  show  that  the  gaps  have  never  been  quite 
filled.  Since  the  opening  of  the  railroad  to 
Taiyuanfu,  the  capital,  wanderers  from  congested 
Shantung  are  filtering  into  the  province.  The 
same  is  true  of  Shensi  which,  besides  losing  five 
millions  of  its  people  in  the  Mohammedan  uprising 
of  the  seventies,  lost  three-tenths  of  its  people  by 
famine  in  1900.  Kansuh,  Yunnan,  and  Kuangsi 
have  never  fully  recovered  from  the  massacres 
following  great  rebellions,  and  one  often  comes  on 
land  once  cultivated  that  has  reverted  to  wilder- 
ness. The  slaughters  of  the  Taipings  left  an 
abiding  mark  on  Kiangsu  and  Chekiang.  Kuang- 
tung  and  Fokien,  the  maritime  provinces  of  the 
South,  have  been  relieved  by  emigration.  The 
tide  first  set  in  to  Formosa  and  California,  later 
it  turned  to  the  Dutch  Indies,  Malaysia,  Indo- 
China,  Singapore,  the  Philippines,  Burmali,  Siam, 
Borneo,  and  Australia.  About  ten  millions  are 
settled  outside  of  China  with  the  result  of  greatly 
mitigating  the  struggle  for  existence  in  these  prov- 
inces. Within  recent  years  $9,000,000  have 
flowed  into  the  Sanning  district  from  which  the 
first  Kuangtung  men  went  out  to  California  and 
to  Singapore.  It  has  all  been  brought  back  or 
sent  back  by  emigrants.  The  fine  burnt-brick  farm 
houses  with  stone  foundations,  the  paved  threshing 
floors  and  the  stately  ancestral  halls  that  astonish 
one  in  the  rural  villages  along  the  coast  of  Fokien 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  109 


are  due  to  remittances  from  emigrants.  In  the 
tiger-haunted,  wooded  hills  thirty  miles  from  Foo- 
chow one  comes  on  terraces  proving  former  culti- 
vation of  soils  it  is  no  longer  necessary  to  till. 

The  near  future  of  population  in  China  may 
be  predicted  with  some  confidence.  Within  our 
time  the  Chinese  will  be  served  by  a government 
on  the  Western  model.  Rebellions  will  cease,  for 
grievances  will  he  redressed  in  time,  or  else  the 
standing  army  will  nip  uprising  in  the  bud. 
When  a net  of  railways  enables  a paternal  gov- 
ernment to  rush  the  surplus  of  one  province  to 
feed  the  starving  in  another,  famines  will  end. 
The  opium  demon  is  already  in  the  way  of  being 
throttled.  As  a feeling  of  security  becomes 
established  the  confining  walls  of  the  cities  will 
be  razed  to  allow  the  pent-up  people  to  spread. 
Wide  streets,  parks  and  sewers  will  be  provided. 
Filtered  water  will  be  within  reach  of  all.  A uni- 
versity-trained medical  profession  will  grapple 
with  disease.  Everywhere  health  officers  will 
make  war  on  plague-bearing  rats  and  mosquitoes 
as  to-day  in  Hong  Kong.  Epidemics  will  be  fought 
with  quarantine  and  serum  and  isolation  hos- 
pitals. Milk  will  he  available  and  district  nurses 
will  instruct  mothers  how  to  care  for  their  in- 
fants. In  response  to  such  life-saving  activities 
the  death  rate  in  China  ought  to  decline  from  the 
present  height  of  fifty  or  fifty-five  per  thousand 
to  the  point  it  has  already  reached  in  a modern- 
ized Japan,  namely,  twenty  per  thousand. 


110 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


But  to  lower  the  birth  rate  in  equal  degree — 
that,  alas,  is  quite  another  matter.  The  factors 
responsible  for  the  present  fecundity  of  fifty  to 
sixty  per  thousand — three  times  that  of  the  Amer- 
ican stock  and  nowhere  matched  in  the  white 
man’s  world,  unless  it  be  in  certain  districts  in 
Russia  and  certain  parishes  in  French  Canada — 
will  not  yield  so  readily.  It  may  easily  take  the 
rest  of  this  century  to  overcome  ancestor  worship, 
early  marriage,  the  passion  for  big  families  and 
the  inferior  position  of  the  wife.  For  at  least 
a generation  or  two  China  will  produce  rapidly  in 
the  Oriental  way  people  who  will  die  off  slowly 
in  the  Occidental  way.  When  the  death  rate  has 
been  planed  down  to  twenty  the  birth  rate  will 
still  be  more  than  double,  and  numbers  will  be 
growing  at  the  rate  of  over  two  per  cent,  a year. 
Even  with  the  aid  of  a scientific  agriculture  it  is, 
of  course,  impossible  to  make  the  crops  of  China 
feed  such  an  increase.  It  must  emigrate  or 
starve.  It  is  the  outward  thrust  of  surplus 
Japanese  that  is  to-day  producing  dramatic  polit- 
ical results  in  Corea  and  Manchuria.  In  forty 
or  fifty  years  there  will  come  an  outward  thrust 
of  surplus  Chinese  on  ten  times  this  scale.  With 
a third  of  the  adults  able  to  read  and  with  daily 
newspapers  thrilling  the  remotest  village  with 
tidings  of  the  great  world,  eighteen  provinces  will 
be  pouring  forth  emigrants  instead  of  two.  To 
Mexico,  Central  and  South  America,  South- 
western Asia,  Asia  Minor,  Africa,  and  even  old 
Europe,  the  black-haired  bread-seekers  will 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  111 


stream,  and  then  “What  shall  we  do  with  the 
Chinese?”  from  being  in  turn  a Californian,  an 
Australian,  a Canadian,  and  a South  African 
question,  will  become  a world  question. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  FUTURE  OF  CHINA 

THERE  are  three  possibilities  known  as  the 
“yellow  peril.’ ’ One  is  the  swamping  of 
the  slow-multiplying,  high-wage,  white  societies 
with  the  overflow  that  is  bound  to  come  when 
China  has  applied  Western  knowledge  to  the  sav- 
ing of  human  life.  This  is  real  and  imminent, 
and  nothing  but  a concerted  policy  of  exclusion 
can  avert  it.  Another  is  the  overmatching  of 
the  white  people  by  colossal  armies  of  well-armed 
and  well-drilled  yellow  men  who,  under  the  in- 
spiring lead  of  some  Oriental  Bonaparte,  will 
first  expel  the  Powers  from  Eastern  Asia  and 
later  overrun  Europe. 

This  forecast  is  dream-stuff.  One  who  goes 
up  and  down  among  these  teeming  proletarians 
realizes  that,  save  among  the  Mohammedans  of 
the  Northwest,  the  last  traces  of  the  military 
spirit  evaporated  long  ago.  The  folk  appear  to 
possess  neither  the  combative  impulses  nor  the 
energy  of  will  of  the  West  Europeans.  Chinese 
lads  quarrel  in  a girlish  way  with  much  reviling 
but  little  pounding;  with  random  flourishing  of 
fists,  but  only  when  there  is  no  danger  of  their 
finding  the  opponent’s  face.  A row  among  coolies 

112 


INDUSTRIAL  FUTURE  OF  CHINA  113 


impresses  one  much  more  with  the  objurgatory 
richness  of  the  language  than  with  the  fighting 
prowess  of  the  race. 

Very  striking  is  the  contrast  with  the  game- 
cock Japanese  who,  fresh  from  a military  feudal- 
ism, are  still  full  of  pugnacity.  At  Singapore 
three  thousand  Chinese  were  detained  in  quaran- 
tine with  three  hundred  Japanese.  The  latter 
made  insolent  demands  such  as  that  they  be  served 
their  rice  before  the  Chinese.  The  Celestials 
could  easily  have  crushed  this  handful  of  brown 
men  but  in  the  end,  rather  than  have  “trouble,” 
they  accepted  second  table.  Not  that  the  Chinese 
is  chicken-hearted.  Indeed,  there  is  tiger  enough 
in  him  when  aroused;  but  he  simply  does  not 
believe  in  fighting  as  a way  of  settling  disputes. 
To  him  it  is  uneconomical,  hence  foolish.  In 
Malaya  it  has  been  observed  that,  no  matter  how 
turbulent  a crowd  of  Chinese  may  become,  if  one 
of  their  headmen  holds  up  his  hand,  they  quiet 
down  till  they  have  heard  what  he  has  to  say. 
Their  tumult  is  calculated  and  they  do  not  get 
beside  themselves  with  rage  as  will  a mob  of 
Japanese  or  East  Indians. 

The  new  army  is  a vast  improvement,  but  still 
its  fighting  spirit  may  well  be  doubted.  “How  do 
you  like  the  service?”  an  American  asked  a 
couple  of  reservists.  “Very  well.”  “How  if  a 
war  should  break  out?”  “Oh,  our  friends  will 
let  us  know  in  time  so  we  can  run  away.”  Smart- 
ing under  repeated  humiliations  the  haughty 
Manchu  princes  are  forging  the  new  army  as  an 


114 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


instrument  of  revenge;  but  the  Chinese  people 
prize  it  as  a buckler  only  and  do  not  intend  it 
shall  take  the  offensive.  In  the  officers  one  misses 
the  martial  visage,  the  firm  chin  and  set  jaw  that 
proclaim  the  overriding  will.  The  wondering  look 
and  the  unaggressive  manner  of  the  private  re- 
veals the  simple  country  lad  beneath  the  khaki. 
The  Japanese  peasant  has  the  bold  air  of  the 
soldier;  the  Chinese  soldier  has  the  mild  bearing 
of  the  peasant.  Belief  that  right  makes  might 
and  that  all  difficulties  can  be  settled  by  appeal- 
ing to  the  li,  i.  e.,  the  Reasonable,  so  saturates 
Chinese  thought  that  nothing  but  a succession  of 
shocks  that  should  move  the  national  character 
from  its  foundation  will  lay  them  open  to  the 
military  spirit.  Long  before  they  have  lost  their 
faith  in  peace,  the  Chinese  will  be  too  strong  to 
be  bullied  and  too  flourishing  to  seek  national 
prosperity  through  conquest. 

The  third  “yellow  peril”  is  the  possibility  of 
an  industrial  conquest  of  the  West  by  the  Orient. 
Contemplating  the  diligence,  sobriety  and  clever- 
ness of  the  Chinese  in  connection  with  their 
immense  numbers  and  their  low  standard  of 
comfort,  some  foresee  a manufacturing  China 
driving  us  out  of  neutral  markets  with  great 
quantities  of  iron,  steel,  implements,  ships,  ma- 
chinery and  textiles  of  an  incredible  cheapness, 
and  obliging  our  workingmen,  after  a long  dis- 
astrous strife  with  their  employers,  to  take  a 
Chinese  wage  or  starve.  Against  such  a calamity 
the  great  industrial  nations  will  be  able  to  protect 


The  railway  police  at  a station 


Chinese  Officers 

Note  lack  of  the  determined,  firm-jawed  military  visage 


INDUSTRIAL  FUTURE  OF  CHINA  117 


themselves  neither  by  immigration  barriers,  nor 
by  tariff  walls. 

Assuredly  the  cheapness  of  Chinese  labor  is 
something  to  make  a factory  owner’s  mouth 
water.  The  women  reelers  in  the  silk  filatures 
of  Shanghai  get  from  eight  to  eleven  cents  for 
eleven  hours  of  work.  But  Shanghai  is  dear; 
and,  besides,  everybody  there  complains  that  the 
laborers  are  knowing  and  spoiled.  In  the  steel 
works  at  Hanyang  common  labor  gets  $3  a month, 
just  a tenth  of  what  raw  Slavs  command  in  the 
South  Chicago  steel  works.  Skilled  mechanics  get 
from  eight  to  twelve  dollars.  In  a coal  mine  near 
Ichang  a thousand  miles  up  the  Yangtse  the  coolie 
receives  one  cent  for  carrying  a 400-lb.  load  of 
coal  on  his  back  down  to  the  river  a mile  and  a 
half  away.  He  averages  ten  loads  a day  but  must 
rest  every  other  week.  The  miners  get  seven 
cents  a day  and  found;  that  is,  a cent’s  worth  of 
rice  and  meal.  They  work  eleven  hours  a day  up 
to  their  knees  in  water,  and  all  have  swollen  legs. 
After  a week  of  it  they  have  to  lie  off  a couple 
of  days.  No  wonder  the  cost  of  this  coal  (semi- 
bituminous)  at  the  pit’s  mouth  is  only  thirty-five 
cents  a ton.  At  Chengtu  servants  get  a dollar 
and  a half  a month  and  find  themselves.  Across 
Szechuan  lusty  coolies  were  glad  to  carry  our 
chairs  half  a day  for  four  cents  each.  In  Sianfu 
the  common  coolie  gets  three  cents  a day  and  feeds 
himself,  or  eighty  cents  a month.  Through 
Shansi  roving  harvesters  were  earning  from  four 
to  twelve  cents  a day  and  farm  hands  got  five  or 


118 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


six  dollars  a year  and  their  keep.  Speaking 
broadly,  in  any  part  of  the  Empire,  willing  labor- 
ers of  fair  intelligence  may  be  had  in  any  number 
at  from  eight  to  fifteen  cents  a day. 

With  an  ocean  of  such  labor  power  to  draw  on, 
China  would  appear  to  be  on  the  eve  of  a manu- 
facturing development  that  will  act  like  a con- 
tinental upheaval  in  changing  the  trade  map  of 
the  world.  The  impression  is  deepened  by  the 
tale  of  industries  that  have  already  sprung  up. 
In  twenty  years  the  Chinese  have  established 
forty-six  silk  filatures,  thirty-eight  of  them  in 
Shanghai.  More  than  a dozen  cotton-spinning 
mills  are  supplying  yarn  to  native  hand  looms. 
Two  woolen  mills  are  weaving  cloth  for  soldiers’ 
uniforms.  In  Shanghai  there  are  pure  Chinese 
factories  making  glass,  cigarettes,  yellow-bar 
soap,  tooth-brushes,  and  roller-process  flour. 
The  Hanyang  Iron  and  Steel  Works — with  5,000 
men  in  the  plant  and  many  thousands  more  mining 
and  transporting  its  ore  and  coal — is  doubling 
its  capacity,  having  last  year  contracted  with  an 
American  syndicate  to  furnish  annually  for  fif- 
teen years  from  36,000  to  72,000  tons  of  pig-iron 
to  a steel  plant  building  at  Irondale  on  Puget 
Sound. 

Those  who  judge  by  surfaces  anticipate  a de- 
velopment swift  and  dramatic ; to  our  race  a 
catastrophe  or  a blessing  according  as  one  cares 
for  the  millions  or  the  millionaires.  But,  peer- 
ing beneath  the  surface,  one  descries  certain 
factors  which  forbid  us  to  believe  that  the  in- 


INDUSTRIAL  FUTURE  OF  CHINA  119 


dustrial  blooming  of  the  yellow  race  is  to  occur 
in  our  time. 

Before  flooding  world  markets  the  yellow-labor 
mills  must  supply  the  wants  of  the  Chinese  them- 
selves for  manufactured  goods;  and,  even  if,  man 
for  man,  they  have  not  more  than  a seventh  of  the 
buying  power  of  Americans,  China  still  offers  a 
market  more  than  half  as  large  as  that  of  the 
whole  United  States.  Its  estimated  annual  con- 
sumption of  cotton  goods  would  carpet  a road- 
way sixty  feet  wide  from  here  to  the  moon!  Ow- 
ing to  the  indefinitely  expanding  market  Eastern 
Asia  will  afford  for  the  cheap  machine-made 
fabrics,  utensils,  implements,  cutlery,  toilet 
articles  and  time-pieces  to  pour  forth  from  the 
native  factories  to  be  established,  the  evil  day  is 
yet  distant  when  the  white  man’s  product  will 
be  beaten  from  the  South  American  or  African 
fields  by  the  handiwork  of  the  yellow  man. 

Then  production  is  not  always  so  cheap  as  wages 
are  low.  For  all  his  native  capacity,  the  coolie  will 
need  a long  course  of  schooling,  industrial  train- 
ing, and  factory  atmosphere  before  he  inches  up 
abreast  of  the  German  or  American  workingman. 
At  a railway  center  in  North  China  is  a govern- 
ment establishment  that  imports  bridge  materials 
from  Europe,  builds  up  the  beams,  fits  and 
punches  them,  and  sends  them  out  in  knock-down 
state  to  the  place  where  the  bridge  is  needed. 
Yet,  with  labor  five  times  as  cheap,  it  cannot 
furnish  iron  bridges  as  cheaply  as  they  can  be 

imported  from  Belgium,  which  means  that  at  pres- 
6 


120 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


ent,  one  Belgian  iron-worker  is  worth  more  than 
five  Chinese.  It  will  take  at  least  a generation 
or  two  for  the  necessary  technical  skill  to  become 
hereditary  among  these  working  people. 

Active  China,  which  is  about  as  large  as  the 
United  States  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  has 
less  than  7,000  miles  of  railway.  Owing  to  the 
thick  population  and  the  intensive  agriculture  the 
traffic  potency  of  most  parts  is  even  now  so  great 
that,  no  doubt,  ten  times  the  present  mileage,  if 
economically  constructed  and  managed,  would 
yield  handsome  dividends  on  the  investment. 
Now,  at  best  it  would  take  China’s  spare  capital 
for  the  next  thirty  years  to  build  the  railways  the 
country  ought  to  have.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind, 
too,  that,  outside  a few  treaty  ports,  the  new  in- 
dustries await  the  initiative  of  the  Chinese.  Gone 
forever  are  the  halcyon  days  of  Li  Hung  Chang’s 
railway  and  mining  concessions,  when  a single 
foreigner  could  obtain  the  exclusive  right  to  mine 
coal  and  iron  over  5,400  square  miles  of  the  rich- 
est mineral-bearing  province.  The  rising  nation- 
alism with  its  cry,  “China  for  the  Chinese,”  has 
put  an  end  to  all  that.  The  Government  has  re- 
covered certain  of  the  railway  concessions  and 
the  people  of  Shansi  paid  the  Peking  Syndicate 
two-and-one-quarter  millions  of  dollars  to  re- 
linquish an  undeveloped  concession.  China  will, 
no  doubt,  block  the  path  of  the  foreign  exploiter 
as  carefully  as  Japan  has,  and  her  mills  and  mines 
will  be  Chinese  or  nothing.  But  the  courage  of 
the  Chinese  capitalist  is  chilled  by  the  rapacity  of 


INDUSTRIAL  FUTURE  OF  CHINA  121 


officials  unchecked  by  law  court  or  popular  suf- 
frage. One  of  the  directors  of  the  Shanghai- 
Hangchow  Railway — a purely  Chinese  line — tells 
me  their  chief  trouble  in  building  the  road  was 
the  harassing  “inspections”  which  obliged  them 
to  bribe  the  officials  in  order  to  go  on  with  the 
work.  Moreover,  Peking  forced  upon  the  com- 
pany a large,  unneeded  foreign  loan  which  would 
have  been  expended  by  government  men  without 
the  stockholders  knowing  how  much  stuck  to  the 
fingers  of  the  officials.  So,  instead  of  using  the 
money  for  building  the  road,  the  company  loaned 
it  out  in  small  amounts  at  a high  interest  and  will 
repay  it  as  soon  as  the  terms  of  the  loan  permit. 

The  case  of  Fokien  shows  how  irresponsible  gov- 
ernment paralyzes  the  spirit  of  enterprise.  For 
half  a century  Fokienese  have  been  wandering  into 
the  English  and  Dutch  possessions  in  Southeast- 
ern Asia,  where  not  a few  of  them  prosper  as 
merchants,  planters,  mine  operators,  contractors 
and  industrialists.  Some  of  them  return  with 
capital,  technical  knowledge,  and  experience  in 
managing  large  undertakings.  Yet,  aside  from  a 
saw  mill — the  only  one  I saw  in  China — I hear  of 
not  one  modern  undertaking  in  the  province.  The 
coal  seams  lie  untouched.  The  mandarins  lay  it 
to  the  difficulty  of  getting  the  coal  to  tidewater. 
The  Fokienese  rich  from  his  tin-mining  in 
Perak — there  are  thirty  Chinese  millionaires  in 
the  Malay  States — tells  you  it  is  dread  of  official 
“squeeze.” 

The  country  back  of  Swatow  is  rich  in  minerals. 


122 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


But  what  probably  would  happen  to  a retired 
Singapore  contractor  so  rash  as  to  embark  on  a 
mining  venture  there?  The  clan  of  Hakkas  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  ore  deposit  would  demand 
something  for  letting  him  work  it  unmolested. 
The  local  mandarin  would  have  to  be  squared. 
The  “li  kin”  officials  would  sweat  him  well  before 
letting  his  imported  machinery  go  up  the  river. 
The  magistrate  of  every  district  his  product 
touched  in  going  down  to  the  coast  would  hold  him 
up.  Finally,  at  any  moment,  his  operations  might 
be  halted  by  an  outbreak  of  superstitious  fear  lest 
they  were  disturbing  the  earth  dragon  and  spoil- 
ing the  luck  of  the  community.  Small  wonder  a 
high  imperial  official  confessed  to  me — in  confi- 
dence— that  not  one  penny  of  his  fortune  ever 
goes  into  a concern  not  under  foreign  protection. 

His  Excellency  Wu  Ting  Fang  is  so  impressed 
with  the  blight  of  insecurity  that  he  suggests  that, 
instead  of  clamoring  for  an  early  parliament,  the 
people  exact  of  the  Imperial  Government  a Magna 
Charta  guaranteeing  the  following  rights:  No 
arrest  without  a proper  warrant;  public  trial 
within  twenty-four  hours;  no  punishment  or  fin- 
ing of  the  relatives  of  a convicted  person ; no  con- 
fiscation of  the  property  of  his  partners  or  busi- 
ness associates. 

Although  vast  in  aggregate  the  agriculture  of 
China  is  petty  agriculture  and  its  industry  is  petty 
industry.  Its  business  men  are  unfamiliar  with 
the  management  of  large-scale  enterprises  and 


INDUSTRIAL  FUTURE  OF  CHINA  125 


have  had  no  experience  with  the  joint-stock  com- 
pany. Highly  honorable  as  merchants  and  bank- 
ers, they  have  never  worked  out  an  ethics  for  the 
stock  company,  and  in  such  relations  they  are  the 
prey  of  a mutual  distrust  which  is  only  too  well 
founded. 

The  taking  of  commissions  has  become  so  in- 
grained in  the  Chinese  that  it  is  no  longer  a moral 
fact  but  only  an  economic  fact.  Your  cook  takes 
his  wages  as  a recompense  for  his  technical  serv- 
ices only;  for  his  services  as  a business  man  in 
buying  for  your  household  he  feels  himself  en- 
titled to  a profit.  Bray  him  in  a mortar  but  you 
will  not  get  the  notion  out  of  him.  A customs 
chief  tells  me  how  thirty  years  ago  when  he  was  a 
newcomer  he  complained  bitterly  to  his  Chinese 
teacher  about  the  way  he  as  a foreigner  was 
robbed  by  his  servants.  “But,”  explained  the 
scholar,  “we  Chinese  suffer  from  the  practice  as 
much  as  you  do.  If  I give  the  old  woman  who  is 
my  servant  five  cash  to  buy  food  for  me  she  keeps 
one  cash.  If  I give  her  one  cash  to  buy  vinegar 
she  cannot  pocket  her  commission,  but  she  will  not 
be  foiled;  she  spills  a little  of  the  vinegar !” 

This  is  why  as  soon  as  a business  capital  is  any- 
where got  together  it  begins  mysteriously  to  melt 
away.  A company  formed  to  build  a certain  rail- 
way maintains  an  idle  office  staff  of  ten,  and 
station-masters  have  been  engaged  and  put  on  the 
pay-roll,  although  not  a rail  has  been  laid.  Much 
of  the  pay  of  these  lucky  employes  goes,  no 
doubt,  to  those  who  appointed  them.  Sleepers 


126 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


were  bought  in  great  quantities,  and  after  lying 
for  a year  were  sold  to  carpenters.  One  of  the 
government  railways  called  for  tenders  for  sleep- 
ers. A German  firm  bid  lowest  and  filled  the 
order.  Later,  when  more  sleepers  were  wanted, 
the  purchasing  official,  instead  of  calling  for  new 
bids,  telegraphed  to  the  firm,  “Your  Japanese 
competitor  has  come  down  to  your  figure,  but  you 
may  have  the  contract  for  a moderate  commis- 
sion.” The  offer  was  ignored,  and  the  Japanese 
supplied  the  sleepers,  no  doubt  after  giving  a 
douceur. 

In  a big  government  works  the  foreign  expert 
after  due  tests  designated  a certain  coal  as  the 
best  in  heating  capacity.  The  first  lot  supplied 
to  him  by  the  purchasing  agent  of  the  works  was 
O K.  The  second  was  poor,  although  the  agent 
stoutly  insisted  it  was  the  same  coal.  He  had  been 
given  a commission  to  substitute  the  inferior  fuel. 
The  railway  engineer,  whether  foreigner  or  Chi- 
nese, is  continually  put  out  by  the  arrival  from 
oversea  of  machinery  or  materials  different  in 
kind  or  grade  from  what  he  had  ordered.  The 
cause  is  not  inadvertence.  There  are  thirteen 
railways  now  being  constructed  on  the  basis  of 
“everything  Chinese,”  and  most  of  them  have  one 
trait  in  common ; the  money  goes  faster  than  the 
construction.  The  Amoy-Cliangchowfu  line,  the 
first  in  Fokien,  proceeds  with  disappointing  slow- 
ness. Great  piles  of  rails  and  ties  lie  deteriorat- 
ing, waiting  for  road-bed.  The  construction  of 
the  Canton-Hankow  line  advances  at  what  the 


INDUSTRIAL  FUTURE  OF  CHINA  127 


stockholders  feel  to  be  a snail’s  pace.  The  Anhwei 
Railway  Company  has  disbursed  five  million  taels 
and  not  a mile  of  track  is  completed.  The  piers 
for  the  bridges  are  ready,  the  structural  iron  for 
them  is  on  the  ground,  and  thirteen  miles  of  grad- 
ing is  completed.  But  the  company’s  money  and 
credit  are  gone,  the  shareholders  are  disgusted, 
and  work  is  nearly  at  a standstill.  There  are 
enough  of  such  experiences  to  make  one  call  China 
‘ ‘ the  land  of  broken  promise.  ’ ’ Some  of  the  trou- 
ble is  due  to  bad  judgment,  but  too  often  the  man- 
agement has  been  pulled  out  of  plumb  by  the  itch 
for  commissions. 

With  us  the  individual  early  detaches  himself 
from  his  family  and  circulates  through  society  as 
a free  self-moving  unit.  In  China  family  and  clan 
ties  mean  more,  and  there  are  few  duties  more 
sacred  than  that  of  helping  your  kinsmen  even 
at  other  people’s  expense.  You  feel  it  is  right  to 
provide  berths  for  your  relatives  and  no  scruple 
as  to  their  comparative  fitness  tweaks  your  con- 
science. When  an  expectant  is  appointed  to  office 
(not  in  his  own  province,  of  course),  his  relatives 
even  unto  the  nth  degree  call  upon  him  with  con- 
gratulations and  suggest  that  he  find  places  for 
them  in  his  new  post.  After  he  takes  office  the 
proteges  of  his  predecessor,  realizing  that  their 
room  is  more  prized  than  their  company,  have  the 
grace  to  get  out  as  soon  as  they  can  “look 
around.” 

Now,  this  pestilent  nepotism  quickly  fastens  it- 
self upon  industrial  undertakings.  The  manager 


128 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


of  a government  plant  on  looking  into  one  of  the 
departments,  which  was  going  badly,  found  that 
thirty-three  out  of  the  fifty-five  men  in  that  depart- 
ment were  relatives  of  the  foreman.  Since  two 
years  ago,  when  the  Peking-Hankow  Railway 
came  under  Chinese  management,  the  positions 
along  the  line  have  been  filled  on  the  basis  of  sheer 
favoritism,  with  the  result  of  loading  the  pay-roll 
with  incompetents.  No  wonder  the  ticket-seller 
regards  the  crowd  at  the  ticket-window  as  a nui- 
sance, and  lets  them  fume  while  he  chats  with  his 
friends.  And  you  may  hear  the  track  manager 
complain  bitterly  of  having  to  put  in  and  retain 
certain  relatives  of  the  director,  who  cannot  do  the 
work  assigned  them. 

So  desperate  is  the  struggle  to  live  and  so  in- 
grained is  the  spirit  of  nepotism  that  whenever 
a capital  is  laid  out  by  anyone  else  than  the  owner 
employes  multiply  like  locusts.  They  drop  out 
of  the  clouds  and  spring  up  from  the  ground. 
The  government  offices  at  Peking  are  clogged  with 
useless  place-holders.  You  marvel  that  colleges 
with  twenty-five  or  thirty  teachers  maintain  ten 
officers  of  administration  until  you  realize  that 
half  of  them  are  sinecurists.  In  one  plant  the 
foreign  expert  found  thirty-six  parasites  sucking 
the  water-pipe  all  day  and  drawing  good  pay. 
One  was  purchaser  of  coal,  another  purchaser  of 
wood,  another  custodian  of  the  steam-fittings,  and 
so  on. 

At  Lin  Ching  a Belgian  company  came  to  terms 
with  a Chinese  company  with  a concession  by  giv- 


Cash  equivalent  to  $3.15,  A slow  freight  on  the  Great 

weight  50  lbs.  Northern  Road 


INDUSTRIAL  FUTURE  OF  CHINA  131 


mg  them  half  the  stock  and  agreeing  to  pay  a 
Chinese  director  and  a Chinese  engineer  in  addi- 
tion, of  course,  to  the  foreign  director  and  the  for- 
eign engineer.  The  theory  is  that  the  Belgians 
and  the  Chinese  are  partners  in  operating  the  col- 
liery; but  the  naked  fact  is,  that  the  latter  are 
mere  parasites  on  the  enterprise.  The  Chinese 
director  lives  at  Tientsin  on  his  seven  hundred  dol- 
lars a month,  and  never  goes  near  the  mine.  The 
Chinese  engineer  with  his  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  dollars  a month  and  a fine  house  built  him 
near  the  mine  gives  no  technical  services  whatever 
hut  goes  about  suppressing  the  petty  native  coal 
diggings  that  impair  the  exclusiveness  of  the  com- 
pany’s concession! 

In  another  place  a German  company  has  opened 
coal  mines  under  an  arrangement  whereby  the 
Chinese  take  half  the  nominal  capital  and  a Chi- 
nese director  is  paid  a fine  salary.  He  lives  at 
Tientsin  and  never  comes  near  the  works.  The 
German  manager  directs  and  he  earns  his  salary. 
If  the  coal  is  being  pilfered  and  he  makes  com- 
plaint to  the  hsien  magistrate  against  the  culprits, 
they  are  persistently  let  off  until  the  manager 
calls  and  fills  the  pockets  of  the  worthy  mandarin 
with  dollars.  Then  the  thieves  are  bambooed. 
Under  such  harassments  the  foreign  staff  as  a 
whole  can  take  no  holiday.  They  must  be  on  the 
spot  all  the  time,  for  the  moment  they  leave  things 
go  badly  and  in  a short  time  the  plant  would  be 
ruined. 

At  the  present  stage  the  Chinese  business  man 


132 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


can  get  along  neither  with  the  foreign  expert  nor 
without  him.  Four  hundred  miles  up  the  West 
River  you  see  tons  of  heavy  machinery  lying  on 
the  bank.  It  was  imported  for  smelting  silver  ore 
in  the  mountains  fifteen  miles  away.  The  Chinese 
found  themselves  unable  to  set  up  the  smelter,  so 
the  machinery  rusts  while  the  ore  is  smelted  in 
England.  An  engineer  will  be  given  lot  after  lot 
of  bad  coal  because  his  manager  never  thinks  of 
fuel  in  terms  of  heating  capacity.  To  him  coal  is 
coal  and  the  cheapest  is  the  best.  Shansi  is  the 
Pennsylvania  of  the  Empire,  and  at  great  price 
the  provincials  regained  the  right  to  exploit  its 
mineral  wealth  themselves.  Yet  a certificated 
colliery  manager  has  been  four  years  at  Shansi 
University  as  professor  of  mining  and  never  has 
his  professional  opinion  been  sought  on  a mining 
question ! 

The  Hanyang  Company  appreciates  the  expert 
and  employs  twenty-two  French  and  Belgians  to 
supervise  the  making  of  steel.  But  not  always 
are  the  Chinese  so  fortunate.  The  first  Swatow 
Electric  Light  Company  failed  through  reliance 
upon  a foreigner  who  was  less  of  an  expert  than 
he  represented  himself  to  be.  About  three  years 
ago  the  “Protection  of  Shansi”  Mining  Company 
undertook  to  develop  coal-mining  in  their  prov- 
ince. The  first  expert  they  employed  was  to 
reconnoiter  and  report.  He  spent  several  months 
going  about,  but,  as  he  failed  to  map  his  wander- 
ings and  finds,  his  reports  were  worth  little. 
Then  a great  English  expert  was  engaged,  but 


INDUSTRIAL  FUTURE  OF  CHINA  133 


when,  on  reaching  Tientsin,  he  learned  he  was  ex- 
pected to  spend  months  in  the  field  instead  of  a 
few  weeks,  he  took  his  expenses  and  went  home. 
When,  finally,  a twenty-foot  vein  of  coal  was  at- 
tacked, expert  after  expert  quit  because  each  in- 
sisted on  having  things  done  right,  and  the  com- 
pany would  not  follow  his  advice.  It  is  plain  that 
both  the  native  capitalists  and  the  imported 
experts  have  grievances.  The  situation  is  un- 
fortunate, and  cannot  hut  retard  development 
until  China  has  good  engineering  and  technical 
schools  for  training  experts  of  her  own. 

The  inefficiency  of  the  management  of  Chinese 
undertakings  is  heart-rending  in  its  waste  of 
sweat-won  wealth.  The  superintendent  of  con- 
struction of  a railroad  will  be  a worthy  mandarin, 
without  technical  knowledge  or  experience,  who 
has  to  rely  wholly  on  his  subordinates.  Or  the 
prominent  financier  chosen  president  of  the  com- 
pany feels  himself  quite  above  the  vulgar  details 
of  management  and  so  delegates  the  task  to  some- 
one of  less  consequence.  This  gentleman,  too, 
feels  above  the  work,  and  passes  it  down  to  some- 
one else.  So  the  big  men  become  figureheads  and 
little  men  run  the  enterprise.  Any  government 
undertaking  suffers  from  the  conceit  and  un- 
practicality of  the  mandarins.  The  initial  price 
of  the  cement  from  a government  plant  was  fixed 
at  a dollar  a barrel  more  than  the  cost  of  good 
foreign  cement.  The  officials  thought  that  the 
people  would  beg  for  “imperial  cement’ ’ regard- 
less of  price. 


134 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


When  the  government  match  factory  was  pro- 
jected for  Taiyuanfu  the  factory  was  built,  ma- 
chinery was  ordered  from  the  United  States  and 
workmen  were  hired.  But  the  machinery  never 
came  for  no  money  had  accompanied  the  order, 
and  the  workmen  were  paid  for  doing  nothing  un- 
til in  a couple  of  years  the  fund  allotted  to  the 
enterprise  was  exhausted.  Not  long  ago  the  en- 
terprise was  revived  and  the  government  product 
has  now  crowded  out  the  Japanese  matches. 
Near  Wuhu  is  a modern  brick  kiln  which  under 
a foreign  superintendent  turned  out  excellent 
bricks  at  the  same  price  as  those  from  the  native 
kilns ; but  under  Chinese  management  the  quality 
has  sunk  until  the  output  is  little  better  than  the 
native  bricks. 

Again,  the  Chinaman  is  handicapped  by  his  lust 
for  immediate  profit  without  regard  to  the  future. 
For  example,  near  the  end  of  1909  Captain  Plant 
began  running  the  “Shutung”  through  the 
Yangtse  Gorges  to  Chungking.  It  was  the  first 
steam  service  on  that  dangerous  reach  and  the 
little  steamer  made  money  so  fast  that  her  Chinese 
owners,  intent  only  on  the  gain  of  the  moment, 
gave  the  Captain  no  time  between  trips  to  clean 
her  engines.  Only  when  the  indispensable 
skipper  refused  to  make  another  trip  was  he 
granted  a week  to  overhaul  her  vitals. 

Years  ago  Dr.  Nevius,  a missionary  at  Chefoo, 
set  out  the  best  of  American  fruit  trees  and  the 
product  of  his  orchard  became  famous  through- 
out the  Far  East.  But  on  his  death  the  orchard 


llVoig'hiiig:  silver  ingots  in  a Niaufu  bank  ^ protected  monument  at  Sianlu 


INDUSTRIAL  FUTURE  OF  CHINA  137 


came  into  the  hands  of  a Chinaman  who,  greedy 
of  the  maximum  profit,  made  it  a pasture  for  pigs, 
neglected  to  loosen  the  soil  and  never  pruned  the 
trees.  As  a result  the  fruit  has  greatly  deterior- 
ated, the  cherries  have  become  small,  the  apples 
and  pears  knotty,  woody  and  wormy. 

The  fact  is  the  faulty  past  lies  too  heavily  on 
the  mind  and  the  character  of  contemporary 
Chinese.  The  real  strength  of  the  race  will  not 
generally  declare  itself  till  a new  generation  is 
on  the  stage,  bred  in  the  new  education  and  en- 
forcing a higher  code.  Perhaps  the  moral  atmos- 
phere will  not  clear  till  there  has  come  a marked 
let-up  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  At  the  back 
of  the  business  man’s  mind  lurks,  I fancy,  a dim 
sense  of  a myriad  clutching  hands.  People  do  not 
judge  one  another  very  strictly  when  each  acts  with 
the  abyss  ever  before  his  eyes.  The  excellent 
reputation  enjoyed  by  the  Chinese  business  men 
in  Malaysia  suggests  that  only  in  a land  of  op- 
portunity does  the  natural  solidity  of  character 
of  the  yellow  race  show  itself.  In  the  Straits  Set- 
tlements the  Chinese  are  successful  producers  of 
pith  helmets,  chemicals,  medicines,  lighthouse 
lenses,  machine-carved  furniture,  ice-making  ma- 
chines, wines,  liqueurs  and  other  articles  not  yet 
attempted  by  their  brethren  at  home. 

It  is  not  likely,  then,  that  the  march  of  indus- 
trialism in  China  will  be  so  rapid  and  triumphant 
as  many  have  anticipated.  Jealousy  of  the 
foreigner,  dearth  of  capital,  ignorant  labor,  offi- 
cial squeeze,  graft,  nepotism,  lack  of  experts,  and 


138 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


inefficient  management  will  long  delay  the  harness- 
ing of  the  cheap  labor  power  of  China  to  the 
machine.  Not  we,  nor  our  children,  but  our 
grandchildren,  will  need  to  lie  awake  nights.  It 
is  along  in  the  latter  half  of  this  century  that 
the  yellow  man’s  economic  competition  will  begin 
to  mold  with  giant  hands  the  politics  of  the  planet. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL 

IT  was  in  West  China.  Our  sedan  chairs  were 
a mile  behind  us,  and  we  were  not  sure  of  the 
road.  ‘ ‘ How  far  is  it  to  Paoki  ? ’ ’ the  consul  asked 
a peasant.  No  answer.  “How  far  is  it  to 
Paoki?”  The  man  turned  his  head  a little.  The 
third  asking  brought  a glimmer  of  speculation 
into  the  vacant  eyes.  On  the  fourth  asking  he 
caught  the  idea  ‘ ‘ Paoki.  ’ ’ The  fifth  punctured  his 
mental  fog  with  “How  far?”  and  slowly  and 
thickly  as  from  a sleep-walker  came  the  reply, 
“Forty  li .”  “What  does  it  mean?”  I demanded 
after  a dozen  such  experiences  in  a single  morn- 
ing. “Is  it  sheer  natural  stupidity?”  “No,”  re- 
plied the  consul,  ruminating,  “probably  opium. 
You  have  heard  the  saying  ‘Out  of  ten  Shensi 
people,  eleven  smokers!’  ” 

This  was  my  first  good  look  at  China’s  Skele- 
ton in  the  Closet. 

Opium  smoking  was  first  heard  of  in  China  in 
the  fourteenth  century.  In  1729  there  was  an 
edict  issued  which  prohibited  the  use  of  opium 
and  ordered  the  closing  of  the  smoking-dens. 
Nobody  knows  whether  or  not  it  was  enforced. 
Late  in  that  century,  in  consequence  of  the  British 
East  India  Company’s  pushing  its  Bengal  opium 

139 


140 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


into  the  various  ports  of  China,  the  habit  took 
root  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  The  British 
found  that  it  was  a lucrative  trade  and  never  let 
up.  The  total  gain  from  Indian  opium — that  is, 
the  amount  paid  by  China  and  Eastern  Asia  for 
that  commodity  above  its  cost  price  between  1773 
and  1906 — has  been  estimated  at  two  billion,  one 
hundred  millions  of  dollars.  About  1840,  the 
Chinese  Emperor  became  so  alarmed  at  the  in- 
roads of  the  poison  that  he  appointed  Lin  Im- 
perial Commissioner  at  Canton  with  orders  to  put 
down  the  trade.  His  efforts  brought  him  into 
collision  with  the  English  traders  and  his  de- 
struction of  ten  thousand  chests  of  opium  pre- 
cipitated the  First  Opium  War.  It  ended  in  Eng- 
land’s forcing  on  China  a humiliating  treaty 
which  heavily  indemnified  the  traders  for  their 
losses.  In  1857  came  the  Second  Opium  War  re- 
sulting in  the  Treaty  of  Tientsin  which  bound  the 
government  of  China  not  to  interfere  with  nor 
limit  the  introduction  of  Indian  opium  into  the 
Empire. 

Until  this  time  the  government  had  not  tol- 
erated the  cultivation  of  the  poppy  plant;  but 
now,  rather  than  see  the  country  drained  of  silver 
to  buy  of  India  a narcotic  that  can  easily  be  pro- 
duced on  the  soil  of  China,  the  government  re- 
moved its  restriction,  and  the  poppy  spread  with 
great  rapidity.  In  the  end  six-sevenths  of  the 
opium  consumed  by  the  Chinese  was  home-grown. 

Meanwhile  the  luxury  use  of  opium  spread 
with  appalling  rapidity.  Four  years  ago  the 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  141 


Chinese  were  using  seventy  times  as  much  opium 
as  they  were  using  in  1800.  Annually  twenty-two 
thousand  tons  of  the  drug  were  absorbed,  most 
of  it  converted  into  thick  smoke  and  inhaled  by 
a legion  of  smokers  estimated  to  number  at  least 
twenty-five  millions.  Even  the  English  allow  there 
were  eight  million  smokers.  In  the  poppy  provin- 
ces opium  was  so  plentiful  and  cheap  that  a 
shocking  proportion  of  the  adult  population  be- 
came addicted  to  the  habit.  In  Szechuan,  in  the 
cities  half  of  the  men  and  a fifth  of  the  women 
came  to  smoke  opium.  In  the  country  the  pro- 
portions were  fifteen  per  cent,  and  five  per  cent, 
respectively.  In  Kansuh  three  men  out  of  four 
were  said  to  be  smokers.  In  western  Shensi 
we  came  upon  districts  where  we  were  assured 
that  nine-tenths  of  the  women  above  forty  smoked. 
In  Yunnan  the  principal  inquiry  in  matrimonial 
negotiations  was,  “How  many  opium  pipes  in  the 
family?”  this  being  a certain  indication  of  its 
financial  standing.  Wliole  populations  had  given 
themselves  up  to  the  seductive  pipe  and  were  sink- 
ing into  a state  of  indescribable  lethargy,  misery 
and  degradation. 

The  pipe  has  a peculiar  seduction  for  the 
Chinese  because  their  lives  are  so  bare  of  interest. 
They  indulge  in  none  of  that  innocent  companion- 
ship of  men  and  women  which  contributes  such  a 
charm  to  life.  They  take  to  their  twin  vices — 
opium  smoking  and  gambling — as  a relief  from 
the  dreary  flatness  that  results  from  sacrificing 
most  of  the  things  that  make  life  interesting  in 

7 


142 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


the  mad  endeavor  to  maintain  the  largest  possible 
number  of  human  beings  on  the  minimum  area. 
Under  a family  system  that  tempts  them  to  multi- 
ply without  regard  to  prospects  the  Chinese  have 
pruned  away  much  that  lends  value  to  life.  Five 
years  ago  the  Philippine  Opium  Commission  ob- 
served in  its  report: 

“What  people  on  earth  are  so  poorly  provided 
with  food  as  the  indigent  Chinese,  or  so  destitute 
of  amusement  as  all  Chinese  both  rich  and  poor? 
There  are  no  outdoor  games  in  China,  or  indeed 
any  games  except  in  a gambling  sense.  Absolute 
dullness  and  dreariness  seem  to  prevail  every- 
where. As  these  two  demons  drive  the  Cauca- 
sians to  drink  so  they  drive  the  Chinese  to  opium. 
As  an  individual  may  by  habitual  toil  and  atten- 
tion to  business  become  incapable  of  amusement, 
so  a race  of  almost  incredible  antiquity,  which  has 
toiled  for  millenniums,  may  likewise  reach  a point 
in  its  development  where  the  faculty  of  being 
amused  has  atrophied  and  disappeared,  so  that  all 
that  remains  is  the  desire  to  spend  leisure  in 
placidity.  And  nothing  contributes  so  much  to 
this  as  opium.  In  Formosa  the  merry  Japanese 
boys  are  teaching  the  placid  Chinese  lads  to  play 
tennis,  foot  ball,  polo,  vaulting,  etc.,  with  the  view 
— the  Japanese  teachers  say — of  improving  them 
physically  and  also  of  developing  in  them  a love 
of  sports  which  will  prevent  them  from  wishing  to 
spend  their  leisure  indoors  smoking  opium.  And 
the  poor  who  have  no  leisure?  They  often  have 
no  food,  or  so  little  that  any  drug  which  removes 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  143 


first  the  pangs  of  hunger,  and  later  the  healthy 
cravings  of  appetite,  seems  a boon  to  them.  Add 
to  this  the  feeling  of  peace  and  well  being  that 
often  accompanies  the  smoking  of  opium,  and  it 
is  not  difficult  to  see  why  the  indigent  Chinese  use 
it.  We  administer  morphine  to  relieve  pain.  The 
life  of  the  indigent  Chinese  coolie  is  pain  caused 
by  privation.  The  opium  sot  is  an  object  of  pity 
rather  than  of  contempt.  If  the  Chinese  seem 
more  easily  to  contract  such  evil  habits  than  other 
nations,  and  are  more  the  slave  of  them,  is  not 
that  due  to  the  dullness  of  the  lives  of  the  well- 
to-do  and  to  the  painful  squalor  of  the  indigent  V* 
A month’s  travel  by  sedan  chair  gave  me  some 
light  on  why  the  coolie  hankers  for  his  pipe.  Our 
chair  and  baggage  coolies  took  with  them  no  wrap 
nor  change  of  clothing  and  eight  successive  days 
of  rain  brought  them  to  a state  of  utter  misery. 
After  twelve  hours  of  splashing  and  slipping  up 
and  down  the  mountain  roads  and  fording  swollen 
torrents  in  a cold  drizzle  under  a weight  of  from 
seventy  to  ninety  pounds  they  would  come  at  even- 
ing utterly  exhausted  to  a cheerless,  comfortless 
Chinese  inn.  No  fire,  no  clothing  save  two  soaked 
cotton  garments;  no  bed  save  a brick  hang  with 
a ragged  mat  on  it;  no  blankets.  For  supper 
nothing  but  rice  and  bean  curd  or  macaroni. 
What  wonder  that,  after  eating,  the  poor  fellow 
curled  up  on  the  mat  with  the  tiny  lamp  beside 
him,  rolled  the  black  bead  and  sucked  the  thick 
smoke  till  he  passed  beyond  the  reach  of  cold, 
discomfort  and  weariness ! 


144 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


One  may  wonder  why  the  cancer  was  allowed  to 
eat  so  deeply  into  the  social  body.  To  be  sure, 
the  hands  of  the  government  were  tied  by  the 
treaty  privileges  of  the  trade  in  foreign  opium. 
Still,  what  Western  society  would  tolerate  the 
ravages  of  alcohol  as  China  has  supinely  tolerated 
the  ravages  of  opium?  Even  if  government 


FAMILY  AND  HOME  VANISHING  INTO  THE  OPIUM  PIPE 
(Native  reform  cartoon) 


could  do  nothing,  other  agencies  would  have 
sprung  into  activity.  The  pulpit,  the  platform, 
the  school,  the  chair,  the  press,  and  the  temperance 
societies  and  movements  would  have  set  bounds 
to  the  gangrene.  But  Chinese  society  lacks  most 
of  these  organs  of  self-protection.  In  the  re- 
ligions of  China  there  is  no  place  for  preaching 
or  church  discipline.  The  schools  were  expected 


GEAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  145 


to  teach  nothing  but  the  classic  learning.  News- 
papers did  not  circulate.  Private  associations, 
even  innocent  societies  for  moral  purposes,  were 
under  the  ban  of  government.  Above  all,  women, 
the  natural  foes  of  destructive  vice,  were  bound 
and  dumb.  One  of  the  greatest  forces  behind  the 
temperance  movement  in  the  West  has  been  the 
influence  of  women,  rallying,  organizing,  and 
agitating  in  defense  of  the  home.  But  in  China 
not  one  woman  in  a thousand  can  read.  Women 
have  no  part  in  discussion,  no  place  in  public 
life  and  hence  no  means  of  voicing  the  woe  that 
comes  to  them  from  the  smoking  of  opium  by 
their  men  folk. 

Wliat  finally  moved  the  Imperial  Government, 
at  a heavy  sacrifice  of  public  revenue,  to  enter  on 
its  great  struggle  was  not  so  much  pity  for  the 
wreck  and  misery  caused  by  the  seductive  narcotic 
as  a realizing  sense  of  the  weakness  of  the  Chinese 
nation  in  the  presence  of  the  Western  Powers. 
The  reign  of  apathy  and  selfishness  among  the 
Chinese,  their  lack  of  public  spirit  and  effective 
cooperation  at  critical  moments  were  inviting 
treatment  ever  more  aggressive  and  ruthless.  It 
became  clear  even  to  the  haughty  and  hide-bound 
Manchu  that,  unless  the  people  speedily  renounced 
the  vice  that  was  undermining  its  manhood  and 
recovered  its  normal  resisting  power,  there  was 
no  hope  for  China  among  the  nations. 

The  famous  Anti-Opium  Edict  issued  by  the 
Empress  Dowager  September  20,  1906,  which 
commanded  that  the  growth,  sale,  and  consump- 


146 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


tion  of  opium  should  cease  in  the  Empire  within 
ten  years  was  the  opening  gun  in  what  is  un- 
doubtedly the  most  extensive  warfare  on  a vicious 
private  habit  that  the  world  has  ever  known.  The 
gigantic  moral  conflict  has  raged  over  a territory 
comparable  in  size  to  the  United  States.  Hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  officials,  gentry,  students, 
merchants  and  den-keepers  have  been  drawn  into 
it.  Blood  has  been  shed  and  property  has  been 
destroyed  on  a great  scale.  The  stake  is  the  lives 
of  some  millions  of  opium-users,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  oncoming  generations.  The  guerdon  of 
victory  is  the  assured  independence  of  the  yellow 
race  and  its  eventual  participation  on  equal  terms 
with  the  white  race  in  the  control  of  the  destinies 
of  the  planet. 

Once  see  the  poppy  in  her  pride  and  you  realize 
that  there  is  nothing  drab  nor  homespun  about 
opium  raising.  Among  plots  of  sordid  beans  or 
pulse  or  cabbages  the  poppy  field  stands  out  like 
a flame.  At  full  bloom  its  splendor  befits  a crop 
that  is  to  lure  and  ruin  men  rather  than  nourish 
them.  The  dominant  note  is  snow  white,  but  bells 
of  all  gorgeous  hues  are  to  be  seen : purple,  ruby, 
crimson,  scarlet  and  pink,  besides  white  blossoms 
tipped  or  streaked  with  these — a riot  of  color. 
For  rich  prodigal  beauty  no  field  crop  under  the 
sun  can  match  it.  The  flowering  poppy  is  vivid, 
dramatic  and  passionate,  like  some  superb  ad- 
venturess luring  troops  of  lovers  and,  vampire- 
like, sucking  out  their  souls  with  her  kisses. 


South  half  of  the  west  wall  of  Sianfu.  from  the  west  gate 


City  wall  and  five-story  pagoda,  Canton 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  149 


Nor  is  the  harvesting  commonplace.  When  the 
poppy’s  time  has  come  all  yon  see  is  thousands 
of  spherical  pods  one  or  two  inches  through,  erect 
each  on  its  slender  reed-like  stem.  A man  with 
a small  knife  follows  the  rows  cutting  lightly 
around  every  pod.  Drop  by  drop  a juice  exudes, 
milky  at  first  but  which  in  a day  or  two  turns 
brown  and  gummy.  Then  the  reaper  goes  about 
scraping  from  the  pods  this  precious  gum.  Just 
a few  pounds  of  drug  to  the  acre — that  is  all 
there  is  to  it.  And  the  stalks  dry  and  bleach  like 
the  cast-off  skin  of  a rattlesnake  until  they  are 
gathered  for  fuel,  and  the  pods  are  threshed  for 
the  poppy  seed  to  be  ground  for  food  or  pressed 
for  oil. 

Now,  raw  opium  is  a poison,  and  when  the  crop 
is  in  the  unhappy  women  who  have  been  waiting 
for  it — for  women  abhor  a violent  death — seize 
their  opportunity.  When  we  were  at  Wukung 
in  Shensi  the  mission  ladies  there  were  being 
called  out  nearly  every  day  to  give  an  emetic  and 
save  the  life  of  some  poor  creature  who  thought 
to  end  her  sorrows  with  the  only  poison  within 
her  reach.  From  the  adjoining  province  a cor- 
respondent writes:  “One  benefit  of  the  continual 
rise  in  the  price  of  opium  is  the  manifestly  de- 
creasing number  of  attempts  at  suicide  by  taking 
the  drug.  One  now  finds  it  hard  to  extract  death 
from  ten  rolls  of  opium  and  the  increased  cost  of 
poison  is  deterring  many  would-be  suicides.  The 
present  make  of  opium-rolls,  selling  at  ten  cash, 
contain  only  about  three  parts  of  opium  to  seven 


150 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


of  horse-hoofs  and  other  leather  waste.”  In 
other  words,  when  suicide  costs  as  much  as  ten 
cents  it  is  a luxury  that  few  can  afford.  In  a 
province  where  a servant  gets  eighty  cents  a 
month  and  finds  himself,  this  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at. 

In  most  parts  of  China  the  cultivation  of  the 
poppy  has  been  spreading  at  an  alarming  rate 
within  our  own  time.  It  is  especially,  however, 
the  interior  provinces,  shut  away  by  mountain 
ranges  from  the  commercial  highways,  that  have 
gone  over  to  poppy  growing.  The  reason  is  that 
opium  is  the  one  crop  that  can  be  got  to  market 
without  most  of  its  value  being  eaten  up  in  the 
cost  of  transportation.  A coolie  will  trot  a picul 
[133  lbs.]  of  opium  to  market  over  several  hun- 
dred miles  of  atrocious  roads  without  seriously 
adding  to  the  cost  of  the  drug  that  sells  for  from 
two  to  ten  dollars  a pound.  No  mere  food  prod- 
uct of  the  same  soil  could  profitably  be  carried 
a twentieth  of  the  distance  to  find  a market.  To 
the  farmers  of  Yunnan,  Kweichow,  Szechuan, 
Shensi,  or  Kansuh,  opium  is  the  only  road  to  the 
market,  just  as  in  Washington’s  time  whiskey 
was  the  only  route  by  which  the  trans- Allegheny 
settlers  could  get  their  surplus  corn  to  tidewater. 
And  poppy  prohibition  stung  some  of  them  into 
resistance  just  as  the  Federal  taxes  on  spirits 
galled  the  farmers  of  Western  Pennsylvania  into 
the  Whiskey  Rebellion  of  1798. 

When  the  Empress  Dowager  took  opium  by  the 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  151 


throat  half  the  acreage  of  certain  interior  prov- 
inces was  given  over  to  the  poppy  during  its  sea- 
son. So  much  had  the  plant  cut  into  the  produc- 
tion of  food  that  the  cost  of  the  necessities  of 
life  was  crowding  the  local  laboring  people  to  the 
verge  of  starvation.  There  was  more  money  in 
opium  than  in  anything  else,  and  so  leases,  land 
rentals  and  mortgages  became  adjusted  to  the 
lucrative  opium  crop.  To  many  a farmer  the  re- 
linquishment of  the  poppy  would  spell  blue  ruin. 
The  stopping  of  opium-growing  looked  about  as 
simple  and  feasible  a proposition  as  the  stopping 
of  corn-growing  in  the  West  or  of  cotton-plant- 
ing in  the  South  by  Act  of  Congress.  Many 
thought  the  effete  Imperial  Government  would 
never  show  the  force  and  authority  necessary  to 
wipe  out  the  chief  money-making  crop  of  the  peas- 
antry. 

The  ins  and  outs  of  the  fight  on  the  poppy  are 
full  of  the  Arabian  Nights  flavor.  When  the 
magistrate  proclaims  the  Anti-Opium  Edict  and 
announces  that  he  intends  to  see  it  obeyed  the  cul- 
tivators call  upon  him  in  a body,  grovel  on  their 
faces  before  him,  remind  him  that  he  is  the 
“father  and  mother”  of  them  all  and  beseech  him 
to  save  them  from  ruin  by  letting  them  grow  their 
poppy  just  this  season.  Of  course  there  is  a fat 
bribe  lurking  in  the  background  for  the  official 
who  is  open  to  that  sort  of  persuasion;  and  un- 
less the  official  is  a reformer  at  heart  or  else 
afraid  of  losing  his  place,  he  is  not  wholly  ob- 


152 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


durate.  The  salary  of  the  mandarin  is  nominal 
and  he  has  somehow  to  squeeze  a living  income 
out  of  his  district. 

But  if  importunity  avails  not  the  farmers  re- 
sort to  ruse.  They  raise  the  poppy  in  small 
patches  in  out-of-the-way  places  off  the  main  road 
— behind  walls  or  trees  or  up  a little  side  valley — 
or  they  cut  off  the  leaves  and  flowers  so  the  crop 
cannot  be  recognized  at  a distance.  They  rely 
on  steering-off  or  bribing  shut  the  eyes  of  the 
“runners”  sent  out  from  the  magistrate’s  head- 
quarters to  look  for  infractions  of  the  Edict.  If, 
nevertheless,  the  mandarin  hears  of  illicit  poppy- 
growing and  comes  in  his  big  green  sedan  chair 
borne  on  the  shoulders  of  four  bearers,  with  a 
force  of  men  to  pull  up  the  outlawed  plants,  the 
tactics  suddenly  change.  He  may  be  met  by  the 
men  of  several  confederated  villages  armed  with 
sickles,  pitchforks,  and  billhooks  and  intent  on 
mischief.  At  Wukung  shortly  before  our  visit 
the  mob  put  to  flight  the  satellites  of  the  magis- 
trate and  even  laid  rude  hands  on  the  official  him- 
self. He  took  refuge  in  a temple  and  sagely  let 
it  be  known  the  farmers  might  grow  poppy  for 
all  he  cared. 

At  Kin  Kiangai  in  Kansuh,  the  prefect  who 
had  come  to  destroy  the  growing  opium  was  set 
upon  in  the  official  inn  and  beaten  nearly  to  death. 
In  a few  weeks,  however,  several  of  the  leaders 
of  the  riot  were  beheaded  after  a public  trial  and 
the  overawed  farmers  hastened  to  dig  up  their 
poppy  fields.  At  Wenchow  in  Chekiang,  when  the 


Opium  pipes  confiscated  by  the  Anti-Opium  Society 

Displayed  at  the  third  anniversary  of  the  Society  at  Foochow 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  155 


magistrate  appeared  with  a company  of  soldiers 
and  proceeded  to  destroy  the  evil  crop,  about  two 
thousand  farmers  attacked  his  force  and  a number 
of  rioters  and  soldiers  were  injured.  Three  hun- 
dred troops  and  a gunboat  were  presently  dis- 
patched to  the  scene  and  the  law-breakers  were 
quelled. 

Near  the  capital  of  Shansi  a certain  Kung  who 
had  fortified  himself  with  drink  went  about  heat- 
ing a gong  and  threatening  to  kill  anyone  who 
failed  to  sow  his  poppy.  When  later  the  magis- 
trate sent  to  arrest  him  he  had  disappeared. 
Later  on,  several  women  went  to  his  yamen  and 
demanded  leave  to  grow  opium.  Things  looked 
ugly  and  the  magistrate  appealed  to  the  gover- 
nor of  the  province  who  sent  him  a mandarin  with 
a detachment  of  three  hundred  soldiers.  Several 
villages  combined  and  met  the  force  with  bucolic 
weapons  in  hand.  The  mandarin  became  alarmed 
and  ordered  his  soldiers  to  fire.  After  a volley 
of  blank  cartridge  which  only  excited  derision, 
the  troops  fired  ball  cartridge  and  fifty  fell  killed 
or  mortally  wounded.  Both  sides  were  aghast 
at  the  deadliness  of  the  rifles,  which  the  soldiers 
knew  scarcely  more  about  than  the  peasants. 
The  Chinese  soldier  is  allowed  ten  cartridges  a 
year  for  practice,  but  after  the  various  “squeezes” 
have  been  made  he  gets  about  three. 

The  ordinary  penalty  for  growing  poppy  has 
been  a fine  and  in  some  cases  forfeiture  of  the 
field.  Though  no  one  has  been  executed  for  grow- 
ing poppy,  there  have  been  cases  in  which  the 


156 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


resisters  to  authority,  after  due  trial  and  sentence, 
have  been  taken  out  and  decapitated  in  their  own 
fields  and  their  blood  has  run  down  between  the 
rows  of  the  poppy  they  prized  more  than  the 
public  welfare. 

Since  the  driving  force  behind  the  fight  on  the 
poppy  comes  from  above,  radiates  from  the  apex 
of  the  governmental  hierarchy  at  Peking,  the 
higher  officials  are,  in  general,  more  vigorous  in 
enforcing  the  Edict  than  the  lower.  There  are 
fewer  of  them;  they  can  be  watched,  and  if  they 
prove  lukewarm  they  can  be  fined,  cashiered,  or 
degraded.  In  many  cases  viceroys,  governors  and 
taotais  have  been  dismissed  for  lack  of  zeal,  and 
new  trusty  men  have  been  put  in  their  place  for  the 
express  purpose  of  putting  through  the  govern- 
mental policy.  But  the  little  local  mandarins  are 
too  numerous  to  be  generally  shaken  up  or  cash- 
iered. So  many  of  them  who  have  their  couple  of 
pipes  a day  on  the  sly  and  want  to  let  things 
go  on  in  the  good  old  easy  way  shrink  from  the 
risk  of  enforcing  the  Edict.  Indeed,  some  of  the 
more  enterprising  use  the  threat  of  enforcing  as 
a club  wherewith  to  blackmail  the  opium  growers 
and  den-keepers.  One  hears  of  all  sorts  of  tricks 
by  the  small  magistrates.  One,  on  learning  that 
his  taotai  was  cruising  about  the  country  looking 
for  poppy,  saw  to  it  that  not  one  plant  was  left 
within  sight  of  the  main  road;  but  the  taotai 
foxily  took  the  back  road,  which  was  lined  with 
poppy  fields,  and  the  tricky  magistrate  lost  his 
button  of  rank. 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  157 


It  is  easy  for  the  magistrate  when  called  upon 
to  report  to  clap  his  telescope  to  his  blind  eye, 
like  Nelson  at  Copenhagen,  and  declare,  “I  see 
no  poppy  in  my  district.”  So  sometimes  the 
viceroy  or  taotai  sends  out  trusty  commissioners 
— workers  in  the  anti-opium  societies  that  are 
standing  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  govern- 
ment in  the  fight — to  go  up  and  down  looking  for 
poppy.  If  any  is  discovered,  it  will  be  destroyed 
and  the  magistrate  will  be  punished. 

The  missionaries  are  sworn  enemies  of  opium. 
Indeed,  it  was  the  great  memorial  signed  by  1,333 
missionaries  from  seven  countries  which,  pre- 
sented in  August,  1906,  drew  forth  in  Septem- 
ber the  famous  Edict,  some  of  it  in  the  very 
language  of  the  memorial.  It  was  fitting  and 
natural,  then,  that  one  of  the  roving  commissioners 
in  Fokien  should  call  on  the  secretary  of  a mis- 
sionary organization  and  say,  “I  am  very  anxious 
to  find  and  uproot  every  poppy  field;  but  I can 
not  go  everywhere  myself  to  locate  these  fields. 
The  local  police  or  ‘runners’  are  very  venal  and 
they  will  find  the  fields,  threaten  owners  with  ex- 
posure, receive  their  bribes  for  keeping  still  and 
I shall  fail  in  my  work.  Now,  your  missionaries 
are  in  every  part  of  the  district  I am  sent  to  in- 
spect. Please  ask  them  for  me  to  send  to  you  a 
report  of  any  opium  fields  in  their  neighborhood ; 
and  then  you  give  their  reports  to  me,  and  I will 
see  that  the  plants  are  torn  up.”  Within  a few 
hours  a circular  letter  was  on  its  way  to  a hun- 
dred men  who  could  not  he  bought  nor  brow- 


158 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


beaten,  and  the  astonished  missionaries  found 
themselves  for  once  in  their  lives  cogs  in  the  Im- 
perial Administration  of  China. 

The  completer  a blockade,  the  greater  is  the 
temptation  to  blockade-running.  In  like  manner, 
as  poppy  prohibition  approaches  success  and  the 
price  of  opium  jumps  to  several  times  the  old 
figure,  the  schemes  to  smuggle  through  a crop 
become  more  and  more  brilliant.  Perhaps  the 
most  elaborate  ruse  on  record  was  worked  last 
year  in  Szechuan,  the  great  interior  province 
that  only  two  years  ago  was  so  given  over  to 
poppy-growing  that  food  stuffs  had  reached  an 
almost  prohibitive  price.  The  energetic  Viceroy 
stamped  out  the  poppy  in  every  county  but  one — 
Fouchou  hsien,  about  four  hundred  miles  from 
the  Viceroy’s  capital.  In  this  county,  seventy 
miles  across,  four-fifths  of  the  cultivated  area 
was  in  poppy  last  year  and,  as  the  price  of  opium 
is  from  five  to  ten  times  what  it  was,  the  tricky 
farmers  made  their  fortunes. 

The  scheme  was  worked  as  follows:  In  Janu- 
ary the  taotai  at  Chungking,  hearing  that  poppy 
had  been  sown  despite  the  prohibition,  visited 
Fouchou  with  soldiers,  deposed  the  local  magis- 
trate, fined  him  seven  thousand  dollars  and  sent 
out  the  soldiers  to  cut  down  the  poppy.  But  the 
farmers  covered  with  earth  the  sprouts  just  com- 
ing up  and  where  the  soldiers  did  see  poppy  grow- 
ing they  cut  off  the  tops,  but  took  care  to  cut 
high  enough  not  to  kill  the  plant.  No  doubt  there 
were  inducements.  When  after  a week  the  taotai 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  159 


and  his  minions  had  departed  with  a fine  sense 
of  duty  performed,  the  farmers  hastened  to  un- 
cover the  poppy  sprouts.  Then  they  planted  peas, 
beans,  or  wheat  between  the  rows  so  that  the 
growth  of  these  crops  should  later  hide  the  poppy 
bloom  from  any  distant  view.  Of  course  there 
was  the  new  mandarin  to  he  reckoned  with.  But 
he,  either  scenting  a squeeze  for  himself  or  acting 
under  secret  orders,  put  out  a very  orthodox 
proclamation  that  poppy  was  prohibited  and  then 
announced  that  he  would  make  personal  inspection 
in  June.  If  he  found  any  poppy  then  he  would 
confiscate  the  land  and  have  the  owners  beaten. 
Hear  man,  he  knew  quite  well  that  by  June  all 
the  poppy  crops  would  be  harvested  and  out  of 
sight ! 

Such  wiles  can  he  worked  once  and  no  more. 
The  solid  fact  remains  that  in  opium-steeped 
Szechuan  which  was  producing  a third  of  the 
drug  produced  in  China  the  acreage  has  been  cut 
down  by  eighty  per  cent.  No  more  incontestable 
evidence  of  suppression  can  be  offered  than  the 
great  upward  leap  in  the  price  of  opium.  In 
Honan  we  found  it  had  doubled  in  a year  and 
was  worth  more  than  its  weight  in  silver.  At 
Taiku  in  Shansi  where  no  poppy  grew  last  year 
it  was  selling  for  two  and  a half  times  its  weight 
in  silver  and  the  pipe  fiends  of  the  rich  old  bank- 
ing families,  anticipating  a long  siege,  had  laid 
in  a stock  to  supply  their  needs  for  three  years. 
At  Hwachow  in  the  same  province  it  was  six 
times  as  dear  as  the  year  before.  At  Sianfu  in 


ICO 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


Shensi  it  sold  at  fifty  cents  an  ounce,  three  or 
four  times  the  price  of  the  previous  year.  At 
Tehyang  in  Szechuan  where  not  a spear  of  poppy 
grows  the  price  was  1,600  cash  an  ounce  as  against 
120  cash  two  years  ago. 

It  is  a striking  fact  that  in  four  of  the  great 
poppy  provinces  prohibition  has  been  followed 
by  a season  of  wonderful  harvests  which  have 
gone  far  to  compensate  the  farmers  for  their 
sacrifice  and  so  reconcile  them  to  the  reform  policy. 
The  missionaries  see  the  hand  of  God  in  this 
record  wheat  crop  running  from  twenty-eight  to 
forty  bushels  to  the  acre.  This  and  the  restora- 
tion of  so  much  land  to  food-growing  has  made 
food  more  plentiful  and  cheap  than  it  has  been 
for  years.  New  trade  is  springing  np  and  the 
Hupeh  merchants  who  were  wont  to  drift  every 
summer  through  far  Kansuh  buying  the  opium 
crop  are  now  bringing  back  with  them,  instead  of 
the  enervating  drug,  goat  skins,  eagles’  wings,  pig 
bristles,  donkey  hides,  and  human  hair.  In  this 
province  the  Chinese  experts  in  the  agricultural 
school  are  by  their  experiments  showing  the 
farmers  that  they  can  grow  beet  root,  potatoes  and 
cotton  instead  of  opium.  In  Fokien  farmers  are 
obtaining  from  our  Department  of  Agriculture 
cotton  seed  for  experimental  planting  in  fields 
once  given  over  to  poppy  growing. 

As  earnest  of  its  resolve  to  shake  off  its  lethargy 
and  make  itself  fit  to  speak  with  the  enemy  in  the 
gate  the  Imperial  Government  proceeded  to  purge 
its  ranks  of  opium-smokers.  It  was  felt  the 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  161 


mandarins  must  set  an  example  to  the  common 
people.  In  the  words  of  the  Edict,  “If  the  offi- 
cials are  fond  of  the  vice,  how  can  they  guide 
the  honest  folk  under  them?”  So,  while  officials 
over  sixty  years  of  age  were  tolerated  in  case  they 
found  themselves  unable  to  throw  off  the  smoking 
habit,  all  others  were  given  a stated  term  within 
which  to  break  off.  If  at  the  end  of  the  term 
they  were  not  cured,  they  were  obliged  to  resign. 
Certain  results  of  these  regulations  were  start- 
ling. Not  only  were  hundreds  dismissed  but 
several  high  officials — among  them  two  governors 
and  two  vice-presidents  of  Imperial  Boards — 
died  in  their  persevering  efforts  to  conquer  the 
habit.  These  distressing  cases  caused  the  regula- 
tions to  be  relaxed  so  as  to  allow  smokers  past 
fifty  to  continue  in  office. 

Nothing  turns  a man  into  a liar  like  the  black 
smoke,  and  it  soon  appeared  that  many  an  official 
who  could  not  or  would  not  quit  the  pipe  was 
concealing  his  indulgence  in  order  to  keep  his  of- 
fice and  its  emoluments.  Suspicions  and  denun- 
ciations became  the  order  of  the  day.  It  was 
found  necessary  to  clear  the  situation  by  establish- 
ing testing  bureaus  at  Peking  and  certain  pro- 
vincial capitals.  The  suspect  was  obliged  to  sub- 
mit himself  to  a rigid  test.  After  being  searched 
for  concealed  opium  he  was  locked  up  for  three 
days  in  a comfortable  apartment  and  supplied 
with  good  food  but  no  opium.  If  he  held  out 
he  was  given  a clean  bill  of  health,  for  no  opium 

smoker  can  endure  three  days’  separation  from 
8 


162 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


his  pipe.  The  strongest  resolution  breaks  down 
under  the  intolerable  craving  that  recurs  each 
day  at  the  hour  sacred  to  the  pipe.  Regardless 
of  ruin  to  his  career  the  secret  smoker,  be  he  even 
a viceroy  or  a minister,  will  on  bended  knees  with 
tears  streaming  down  his  cheeks  beg  the  at- 
tendant to  relieve  his  agonies  by  supplying  him 


captives  of  the  lamp  and  pipe  (Native  reform,  cartoon) 


with  the  materials  for  a soothing  smoke.  Cer- 
tain highnesses,  Princes  of  the  Blood  even,  were 
by  this  means  literally  “smoked  out”  and  sum- 
marily cashiered.  In  the  army  prohibition  has 
teeth  in  it,  for  both  officers  and  common  soldiers 
have  been  beheaded  for  obdurate  indulgence  in 
the  pipe. 

Foochow,  long  a seat  of  missionary  influence, 
has  made  the  most  spectacular  fight  on  opium. 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  163 


When  I was  there  no  one  under  penalty  of 
confiscation  of  his  goods  might  smoke  opium 
without  registering  and  taking  out  a permit. 
Such  a permit  is  issued  only  to  one  who  can  prove 
that  he  has  the  opium-smoking  habit.  The  num- 
ber of  his  permit  is  posted  outside  the  house 
where  he  may  smoke  and  he  must  not  smoke  any- 
where else.  While  he  is  smoking  no  one  may 
visit  him  on  any  pretext,  and  after  he  is  through 
all  his  paraphernalia — pipe,  bowl,  lamp,  opium 
box,  needle,  etc., — must  be  gathered  up  and  put 
away.  The  aim  is  to  lessen  illicit  smoking  and 
to  discourage  the  indulgence  by  making  it  soli- 
tary. 

Opium  may  be  sold  only  by  licensed  dealers 
who  account  for  and  pay  a tax  on  every  ounce 
they  sell,  and  it  may  not  be  sold  in  the  place  where 
it  is  smoked.  No  one  may  cook  his  opium  him- 
self; he  must  buy  it  prepared.  The  amount  the 
registered  smoker  may  buy  daily  is  stated  in  his 
permit.  The  salesman  stamps  in  a blank  space 
on  his  permit  the  amount  of  each  purchase  and  it 
must  never  exceed  the  amount  specified.  The 
smoker  must  renew  his  permit  every  three  months 
and  each  time  it  must  be  filled  out  for  a less 
amount.  After  buying  his  opium  he  must  carry 
it  through  the  street  openly.  He  may  not  carry 
it  in  his  pocket,  nor  wrapped  up,  nor  in  his  closed 
hand,  nor  in  a closed  box.  No  one  may  make  or 
expose  for  sale  the  implements  for  opium  smok- 
ing. The  existing  supply  must  suffice  and  as  this 
is  being  reduced  from  time  to  time  by  solemn  pub- 


164 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


lie  burnings  of  stacks  of  paraphernalia,  the  basis 
for  the  vice  is  continually  being  cut  away. 

Under  the  leadership  of  Lin,  grandson  of  the 
famous  Imperial  Commissioner  who  destroyed 
the  Indian  opium,  numerous  anti-opium  societies 
sprang  into  existence  and  cooperated  with  the 
officials.  Their  agents  are  given  full  authority  to 
force  an  entry  to  any  place.  Every  night  their 
vigilance  committees  accompanied  by  policemen 
to  enforce  their  demands  for  admittance  patrol 
the  streets  on  the  lookout  for  illicit  selling  or 
smoking.  At  times  they  have  been  attacked  and 
some  of  them  severely  beaten  but  nothing  turns 
them  aside.  The  societies  collect  and  break  up 
paraphernalia  seized  in  their  raids  or  given  up  by 
reformed  smokers.  From  time  to  time  the  stock 
on  hand  is  stacked  up  in  a public  place  and 
solemnly  burned  to  signalize  the  progress  of  the 
campaign.  Eleven  burnings  have  taken  place  and 
the  pipes,  bowls,  plates,  lamps,  and  opium  boxes 
sacrificed  by  fire  are  upwards  of  twenty-five  thou- 
sand. Nothing  is  spared  and  no  curio  seeker  need 
hope  to  rescue  some  rare  and  beautiful  pipe  by  a 
tempting  bid. 

Thanks  to  these  various  endeavors  the  amount 
of  opium  sold  in  Foochow  has  fallen  off  four- 
fifths  and  the  number  of  opium-smoking  permits 
out  now  is  less  than  half  the  number  originally 
issued.  Hardly  any  but  low-class  people  smoke. 
Since  no  new  registrations  are  permitted,  opium 
wins  no  recruits  and  its  finish  is  in  sight. 

Perhaps  no  city  matches  Foochow  in  the  clever- 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  165 


ness  of  its  campaign.  In  many  places  the  effort 
was  made  to  close  the  shops  and  dens  at  a single 
sweep.  But  always,  after  the  rejoicings  and 
felicitations  had  died  away,  the  dens  quietly  re- 
opened without  the  usual  signboard  and  smoking 
went  on  as  before.  Spasms  of  prohibition  have 


DEATH  IN  THE  LAMP  OF  THE  OPIUM  SMOKER 
(Native  reform  cartoon) 


failed  and  only  the  process  of  pinching  off  the 
evil  by  a gradually  tightening  ligature  of  permits 
and  licenses  has  succeeded. 

The  story  of  the  fight  on  the  dens  is  full  of  in- 
cidents and  alarms.  In  Anhwei  one  official  went 
out  at  night  dressed  as  a coolie  and  found  eight 
dens  filled  with  people.  He  had  them  all  barn- 
booed  on  the  spot,  giving  the  proprietor  300  blows 
and  the  smokers  200.  The  next  day  not  a shop 


166 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


was  open.  In  Amoy  the  sub-prefect  led  raids  on 
places  where  opium  smoking  was  going  on,  private 
residences  as  well  as  shops.  The  smokers  caught 
were  beaten  and  their  appliances  destroyed.  In  a 
city  in  Hunan  ten  dens  were  secretly  reopened. 
The  magistrate  had  the  places  raided  at  night,  the 
shops  were  confiscated  and  sold  and  the  proprie- 
tors were  imprisoned,  beaten  and  cangued.  The 
proceeds  from  the  sale  of  the  property  went  to 
support  schools  and  police. 

Two  years  ago  the  founder  of  the  Anti-Opium 
League  reported:  “In  one  city  the  doors  of 
seven  thousand  dens  have  been  shut.  In  other 
cities  from  two  to  three  thousand  have  been  closed 
while  in  still  other  cities  a thousand  such  places 
have  been  done  away  with.  In  a hundred  thou- 
sand market  towns  throughout  the  land  the  dens 
and  divans  have  been  closed.  Altogether  between 
one  and  two  million  places  for  the  smoking  of 
opium  have  been  removed.” 

Thanks  to  the  posted  proclamations  and  the  ex- 
hortations of  officials  to  headmen  and  gentry,  to 
the  warnings  of  missionaries,  to  the  soap-box 
oratory  of  reformers,  to  the  teachings  in  the  gov- 
ernment colleges  and  to  the  preachments  of  the 
rising  native  press,  in  many  centers  a public 
opinion  has  been  formed  which  holds  up  the  hands 
of  the  government.  It  is  coming  to  be  “bad 
form”  to  smoke  opium.  It  is  no  longer  fashion- 
able to  pass  around  pipes  at  dinner  parties  and 
and  young  men  do  not  have  to  acquire  the  taste 
as  one  of  the  polite  accomplishments.  A national 


Burning'  of  opium  pipes  and  other  paraphernalia  confiscated  by  the  Foochow 
Anti-Opium  Society  (eighth  time) 


■* 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  169 


conscience  is  beginning  to  show  itself  and  the 
slave  of  the  pipe  is  put  to  the  blush.  It  is  now 
worth  while  to  make  the  smoker  carry  his  pur- 
chased opium  in  his  open  hand  and  wear  his  per- 
mit on  a big  wooden  tablet  that  he  cannot  conceal. 
No  one  has  a greater  horror  of  “losing  face”  than 
the  Chinese,  and  there  is  hope  that  the  rising  gen- 
eration will  shrink  from  opium  as  they  shrink 
from  a cobra. 

Think  of  it!  In  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
communities  over  this  huge  empire  a battle  has 
been  going  on.  On  the  one  side  poppy-growers, 
den-keepers,  dealers  and  some  of  the  smokers ; on 
the  other,  the  thoughtful  few — reformers  and  pa- 
triots who  realize  China  is  doomed  to  be  the 
world’s  serf  if  the  drug  is  to  go  on  sapping  the 
strength  of  the  people.  Greed  versus  patriotism 
— it  is  just  our  line-up  on  liquor,  conservation 
and  child  labor  over  again.  And  the  people  are 
coming  out  of  their  stupor  and  their  selfishness. 
They  are  becoming  unified  through  a common 
cause.  A public  has  come  into  being — a public 
that  cares  about  moral  questions.  Public  opin- 
ion, which  was  biting  its  coral  three  hundred  years 
ago  in  the  coffee-houses  of  Shakespeare’s  London, 
is  taking  its  baby  steps  in  China.  Millions  for 
the  first  time  in  their  lives  have  thought,  “What 
is  the  public  good?”  And  mandarins,  dismount- 
ing from  their  immemorial  high  horse,  have 
called  together  the  gentry,  the  merchants  and  the 
headmen  of  the  villages  and  preached  to  them  of 
righteousness,  judgment  and  the  wrath  to  come. 


j! 


170 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


When  Peking  allowed  ten  years  for  the  cleans- 
ing of  the  land  from  the  opium  habit,  it  little 
dreamed  of  the  enthusiastic  response  its  initiative 
would  call  forth  or  of  the  rising  spirit  of  patriot- 
ism that  would  come  to  its  aid.  The  accomplish- 
ment of  the  five  years  elapsed  has  surpassed  all 
anticipations.  The  production  of  opium  in  China 
has  certainly  been  cut  down  sixty  or  seventy  per 
cent.,  and  the  reform  leaders  even  insist  on  eighty 
per  cent.  Millions  of  smokers  are  breaking  off 
because  the  price  of  the  drug  has  risen  clear  out 
of  their  reach. 

But  every  stride  towards  the  suppression  of 
poppy-growing  leaves  the  imported  Indian  opium 
a larger  factor  in  the  situation.  In  1907,  when 
the  exports  of  Indian  opium  to  China  aggregated 
51,000  chests  or  three  thousand  four  hundred  tons, 
the  British  Government  agreed  to  reduce  this 
total  export  at  the  rate  of  one-tenth,  or  fifty-one 
hundred  chests,  a year  until  1911,  with  the  assur- 
ance that  the  reduction  would  be  continued  in  the 
same  proportion  beyond  that  period  provided  the 
Chinese  Government  had  within  the  period  cut 
down  its  home  production  in  like  degree. 

In  May,  1906,  the  House  of  Commons  unani- 
mously resolved  that  the  Indo-Chinese  opium 
trade  “is  morally  indefensible”  and  requested 
the  Government  “to  take  such  steps  as  may  be 
necessary  for  bringing  it  to  a speedy  close.” 
Nevertheless,  when,  in  May,  1910,  the  Government 
was  asked  whether,  seeing  that  the  production  of 
opium  in  China  is  being  largely  restricted,  the 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  171 


British  Government  felt  inclined  to  respond  to 
the  desire  of  the  Chinese  Government  to  shorten 
the  period  of  nearly  eight  years  during  which  In- 
dia is  to  continue  to  send  opium  to  China,  the 
Under-Secretary  of  State  for  India  answered  in 
substance  that  his  Majesty’s  Government  was  not 
disposed  to  disturb  the  settlement  arrived  at. 
The  Christian  people  of  Great  Britain  replied  by 
making  the  twenty-fourth  of  last  October,  the  fif- 
tieth anniversary  of  the  ratification  of  the  shame- 
ful treaty  of  Tientsin,  a day  of  humiliation 
throughout  the  British  Empire,  and  of  prayer  that 
the  opium  trade  might  speedily  cease.  This  dra- 
matic stroke  sent  a new  reform  wave  through 
China  and  led  to  the  forming  of  a National  Anti- 
Opium  Society  with  headquarters  at  Peking. 

The  Chinese  Senate  in  a series  of  most  earnest 
resolutions  appealed  to  the  British  Government 
to  release  China  from  her  treaty  obligations  to  re- 
ceive Indian  opium.  It  was  pointed  out  that  the 
great  crusade  was  nearing  its  crisis.  The  peas- 
ants were  becoming  very  restive  when  they  saw 
their  little  patches  of  opium  destroyed  while  the 
foreign  merchant  vessels  laden  with  tons  of  the 
poison  are  permitted  freely  to  enter  Chinese 
ports. 

This  spring  England  yielded  to  the  accumula- 
ting pressure  and  entered  into  an  agreement  with 
China  whereby  she  consents  to  the  imposition  of 
a higher  duty  on  opium,  agrees  not  to  convey 
opium  to  any  province  of  China  which  has  sup- 
pressed the  cultivation  and  import  of  native 


172 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


opium,  engages  to  cut  down  the  exports  of  opium 
from  India  until  the  complete  extinction  of  the 
trade  in  1917,  provided  China  keeps  step  with  her 
in  the  suppression  of  opium  growing,  and  even 
promises  to  give  the  Indian  opium  trade  its  coup 
de  grace  before  1917  in  case  proof  is  received  that 
the  production  of  opium  in  China  has  ceased. 
Thus  we  are  about  to  see  “ Finis’ ’ written  on  one 
of  the  blackest  pages  in  the  history  of  the  rela- 
tions between  East  and  West. 

The  experience  of  the  Chinese  with  opium 
shatters  the  comfortable  doctrine  that  organized 
society  need  not  concern  itself  with  bad  private 
habits.  The  hand  of  government  was  withheld 
for  a long  time  in  China,  and  if  any  salutary 
principle  of  self-limitation  lurked  in  the  opium 
vice  it  ought  to  have  declared  itself  long  ago.  If 
it  were  in  the  nature  of  opium-smoking  to  confine 
its  ravages  to  fools  and  weaklings,  if  out  of  each 
generation  it  killed  off  the  two  or  three  per  cent, 
of  least  foresight  or  feeblest  self-control,  it  might 
be  looked  upon  as  the  winnower  of  chaff;  and 
society  might  safely  concede  a man  the  right  to  go 
to  the  devil  in  his  own  way  and  at  his  own  pace. 
But  the  vice  is  not  so  discriminating.  Like  a 
gangrene  it  ate  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  social 
body  spreading  from  weak  tissue  to  sound  till  the 
very  future  of  the  Chinese  race  was  at  stake. 
Now,  liquor  is  to  us  what  opium  is  to  the  yellow 
man.  If  our  public  opinion  and  laws  had  been 
so  long  inert  with  respect  to  alcohol  as  China  has 
been  with  respect  to  opium,  we  might  have  suf- 


GRAPPLE  WITH  THE  OPIUM  EVIL  173 


fered  quite  as  severely  as  have  the  Chinese.  The 
lesson  from  the  Orient  is  that  when  society  real- 
izes a destructive  private  habit  is  eating  into  its 
vitals,  the  question  to  consider  is  not  whether  to 
attack  that  habit,  but  howl 


CHAPTER  VII 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA 

FEW  years  ago  there  was  a great  rising 


in  Kansuh,  the  northwest  province.  The 
Mohammedan  rebels  closed  in  on  the  capital,  Lan- 
chow,  slaughtering  whom  they  met.  The  terrified 
countrymen  fled  for  life  to  its  protecting  walls, 
but  the  women,  on  account  of  their  poor  bound 
feet,  fell  behind  and,  failing  to  arrive  before  the 
gates  shut,  were  butchered  at  the  very  threshold. 
While  the  shrieking  women  beat  despairingly  upon 
the  iron-bound  doors  as  they  saw  their  blood- 
thirsty pursuers  drawing  near,  hundreds  of  an- 
guished husbands  who  had  outrun  their  crippled 
wives  knelt  before  the  English  missionary  and 
begged  him  to  urge  the  Governor  to  open  the  gates 
and  let  the  late-comers  in.  The  missionary  ex- 
plained how  this  would  let  the  cutthroats  in  too, 
and  added,  “You  would  have  your  wives  small- 
footed, wouldn’t  you?  Well,  this  is  your  punish- 
ment. ’ ’ 

That  prince  of  diplomats,  Minister  Wu,  used 
to  stir  his  American  audiences  with  the  remark, 
“Yes,  we  bind  our  women’s  feet;  but  you  bind 
your  women’s  waists.  Which  is  the  worse?” 
And  we  would  look  guiltily  at  one  another  and  say, 
“Now,  there  is  something  in  that.”  The  fact  is, 


174 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  175 


that  with  us  tight  lacing  affects  only  the  one  in 
ten  who  would  be  fashionable ; while  in  China  foot- 
binding bore  on  nine  out  of  ten.  And  tight  lacing 
is  self-imposed ; while  foot-binding  is  a mutilation 
forced  on  helpless  children. 

The  Hakka  women  of  southern  Kuangtung  do 
not  bind  their  feet.  In  Canton,  only  the  daughters 
of  the  well-to-do  follow  the  custom  and  it  was  five 
days  ere  I saw  a bound  foot.  You  can  go  thence 
up  the  West  River  five  hundred  miles  and  never  see 
a woman  hobble.  In  the  extreme  North  of  China 
again,  the  Manchu  women  leave  the  foot  natural 
and  this,  perhaps,  is  why  they  are  so  big,  healthy 
and  comely.  In  the  rest  of  the  Empire,  foot- 
binding has  been  not  the  folly  of  the  idle,  nor  the 
fad  of  the  fashionable,  but  a custom  that  bore  upon 
all  classes,  poor  and  rich  alike.  At  Kalgan  on 
the  Mongolian  frontier  the  field  women  work  kneel- 
ing, with  great  pads  over  the  knees  to  protect  them 
from  the  damp  soil.  In  three  districts  in  Kansuh, 
women  are  still  crawling  about  their  houses  upon 
their  knees,  reduced  to  the  locomotion  of  brutes  to 
please  the  perverted  taste  of  men ! In  Shansi  and 
Shensi,  I saw  the  women  wielding  the  sickle,  not 
stooping — that  would  hurt  their  poor  feet  too 
much — but  sitting,  and  hitching  themselves  along 
as  they  reaped.  The  women  had  to  be  carried  to 
the  wheat  field  on  wheelbarrow  or  cart,  and  their 
helplessness  is  such  that  most  of  them  never  in 
their  lives  get  a mile  away  from  the  house  to 
which  they  were  taken  as  brides. 

In  the  course  of  the  morning  we  would  meet 


17G 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


perhaps  a thousand  men,  but  not  three  women. 
They  cannot  get  from  town  to  town  unless  car- 
ried. They  hobble  about  their  village  a little, 
steadying  themselves  by  a hand  on  the  house-walls, 
or  leaning  on  a staff.  They  move  stiff-kneed  like 
one  on  stilts.  In  our  walk  there  is  a point  in  the 
stride  when  the  weight  of  the  body  comes  upon 
the  ball  of  the  foot  and  the  toes,  and  at  this  mo- 
ment the  other  leg  is  bent  and  swings  forward. 
But  in  their  case,  the  front  part  of  the  foot  being 
useless,  the  other  foot  is  brought  forward  sooner, 
and  hence  little  knee  action  is  necessary.  This 
is  why  the  woman  seems  tottering  on  pegs.  This, 
too,  is  why  the  muscles  of  the  calf  never  develop, 
from  the  knee  down  the  legs  are  broomsticks,  and 
there  are  folds  of  superfluous  skin. 

They  tell  us  these  tiny  deformed  feet  appeal  to 
the  aesthetic  in  man.  I doubt  it.  Take  the  poor 
mountaineer  of  western  Shensi.  Are  we  to  sup- 
pose that  this  frowy  dweller  in  a cave  in  the  loess, 
this  sloven  denizen  of  a thatched  hut  with  dirt 
floor,  smoke-blackened  and  cobweb-festooned 
walls,  a tattered  paper  window,  a mud  hang  under 
a verminous  mat  and  a couple  of  stools,  where 
the  pig  and  the  dog  dispute  with  the  fowls  the 
crumbs  brushed  from  the  master’s  grimy  table — 
are  we  to  suppose  that  this  unlettered  hind  is  so 
sensitive  to  beauty  that  at  the  cost  of  fighting  the 
battle  for  existence  with  a crippled  partner  at  his 
side,  he  insists  on  having  a wife  who,  below  the 
coarse  garment  of  an  Indian  squaw,  exhibits  the 
“golden  lily”  of  a four-inch  foot! 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  177 


Is  it  any  wonder  that,  crippled,  crushed  by  con- 
ventional restrictions  and  regarded  with  contempt, 
such  a woman  shows  none  of  the  home-making  in- 
stinct that  in  America  brightens  even  the  log  hut 
of  the  mountain  backwoodsman  with  crazy  quilts, 
rag  carpets,  tidies  and  old  newspapers  scissored 
into  ornamental  patterns  and  pasted  around  the 
clock  shelf  or  over  the  windows?  One  notes  no 
effort  to  adorn,  no  bit  of  white  or  color,  no  sign 
of  “woman’s  hand.”  There  is  not  even  a fam- 
ily meal,  but  each  fills  his  howl  from  the  rice 
bucket  and  lounges  about  eating  when  he  pleases. 
Man  has  confined  the  woman  so  closely  to  the 
home  that  she  knows  not  how  to  make  a “home.” 
The  Chinese  have  a saying,  “For  each  pair  of 
bound  feet  there  has  been  shed  a tubful  of  tears.” 
Very  likely,  since  the  bandaging  begins  between 
the  fifth  and  the  seventh  years,  and,  after  three 
years  of  misery,  the  front  part  of  the  foot  and 
the  heel  ought  to  be  so  forced  together  that  a dol- 
lar will  stick  in  the  cleft.  Says  Mrs.  Little,  who 
fifteen  years  ago  founded  the  T’ien  Tau  Hui 
(Natural  Foot  Society):  “During  these  three 
years  the  girlhood  of  China  presents  a most  mel- 
ancholy spectacle.  Instead  of  a hop,  skip,  and  a 
jump,  with  rosy  cheeks  like  the  little  girls  of  Eng- 
land, the  poor  little  things  are  leaning  heavily  on 
a stick  somewhat  taller  than  themselves,  or  car- 
ried on  a man’s  back,  or  sitting,  sadly  crying. 
They  have  great  black  lines  under  their  eyes,  and 
a special  curious  paleness  that  I have  never  seen 
except  in  connection  with  foot-binding.  Their 


178 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


mothers  mostly  sleep  with  a big  stick  by  the  bed- 
side, with  which  to  get  up  and  beat  the  little  girl 
should  she  disturb  the  household  by  her  wails; 
but  not  uncommonly  she  is  put  to  sleep  in  an  out- 
house. The  only  relief  she  gets  is  either  from 
opium  or  from  hanging  her  feet  over  the  edge  of 
her  wooden  bedstead  so  as  to  stop  the  circulation. 

They  say  one  girl  in  ten  dies  from  the  process ; 
but,  worse  yet,  a descendant  of  Confucius  tells 
me  that  in  Shansi  girl  babies  are  sometimes  killed 
at  birth  precisely  because  foot-binding  so  harrows 
up  the  feelings  of  the  parents!  No  wonder  that 
on  account  of  exaggerated  foot-binding  the  women 
there  are  “extra  dirty  and  extra  lazy.”  They 
pass  their  lives  on  the  hang,  take  no  exercise  and 
never  get  fresh  air  or  a change  of  scene  save  on  a 
rare  festival  day  when  the  well-to-do  are  driven 
out  in  a springless  Peking  cart. 

One  motive  only  induces  a mother  to  impose 
such  suffering  on  her  little  daughter — the  fear  of 
her  not  winning  a husband.  Until  lately  only 
prostitutes  and  slaves  had  natural  feet,  and  a 
girl  with  such  feet  stood  no  better  chance  of  mar- 
riage than  a hunchback.  A bridegroom  finding 
that  his  bride  had  normal  feet  when  he  expected 
“golden  lilies”  would  be  justified  by  public  opin- 
ion in  returning  the  girl  to  her  parents.  But  not 
even  the  bridegrooms  are  chiefly  to  blame.  If 
Jack  chose  his  Jill  there  would  be  some  chance  for 
the  natural-foot  girl.  Many  things  enter  into  sex 
charm  and  young  men  would  never  have  become 
so  conventionalized  but  that  a cherry  lip,  a roguish 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  179 


eye,  or  a quick  wit  might  have  offset  the  handicap 
of  a natural  foot.  But  Chinese  matches  are  made 
entirely  by  parents,  so,  in  the  final  analysis,  this 
terrible  cross — the  heaviest  that  has  ever  been 
laid  on  woman  in  a state  of  civilization — has  been 
laid  on  the  girlhood  of  China  by  the  denatured 
taste  of  middle-aged  fathers,  each  bound  that  his 
son  shall  have  as  modish  a wife  as  the  next  one ! 

Thanks  to  foreign  influence,  thoughtful  men  be- 
came aroused  to  the  evils  of  the  custom  and  a few 
years  ago  an  edict  of  the  Empress  Dowager 
commanded  the  people  to  abandon  it.  The  mis- 
sionaries, who  used  to  be  tender  of  native  cus- 
toms, have  stiffened  their  attitude.  They  preach 
against  it,  denounce  it  in  their  Bible  classes,  and 
some  even  refuse  membership  to  the  woman  who 
presents  herself  at  the  altar  with  bound  feet. 
Nowadays  the  woman  independent  enough  to  turn 
Christian  generally  has  the  courage  to  unbind. 
In  most  mission  schools  no  bound-foot  girl  is  ad- 
mitted. Others  admit  them,  but  the  feeling  runs 
so  high  among  the  pupils  that  soon  every  girl  who 
is  not  hindered  by  a conservative  relative  unbinds. 
One  such  school  invited  the  officials  and  gentry 
to  its  closing  exercises,  consisting  of  marching, 
calisthenics  and  choruses  by  the  pupils.  Two  of 
the  little  girls  had  bound  feet.  The  contrast  be- 
tween their  pathetic  helplessness  and  the  lithe 
grace  of  the  pretty  rosy-cheeked  girls  who  wheeled, 
turned,  and  tripped  their  way  through  the  mazes 
was  so  impressive  that  on  the  spot  the  mandarin 
declared,  “Foot-binding  must  go.”  Within  five 


180 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


days  the  gentry — so  as  not  to  be  beholden  to  the 
missionaries — opened  a girl’s  school  of  their  own. 
Last  year  the  government  ordered  that  no 
foot-hound  girl  be  received  into  any  of  its  schools. 

The  upper  classes  seethe  with  rebellion  against 
the  senseless  custom.  Progressive  ladies  throw 
away  bandages,  massage  their  feet  with  oil,  and 
vie  with  one  another  in  recovering  the  natural 
foot.  Think  of  a group  of  Chinese  women 
eagerly  comparing  feet  to  see  whose  are  larg- 
est! In  China  innovators  must  face  insult  and 
abuse.  A girl  with  natural  feet  venturing  on 
the  streets  of  Wanhsien  on  the  upper  Yangtse 
had  her  clothes  nearly  torn  from  her  back. 
Even  the  wives  of  mandarins  make  ready  stock- 
ings and  shoes  but  put  off  unbinding  until  they 
can  find  other  ladies  who  will  join  them.  So,  for 
mutual  support,  the  society  people  in  a town  fre- 
quently unite  in  a “Natural  Foot  Society”  and 
pledge  themselves  to  unbind  and  not  to  bind  their 
daughters’  feet.  To  brighten  the  matrimonial 
prospects  of  such  girls,  fathers  sometimes  pledge 
one  another  not  to  betroth  their  sons  to  girls  with 
squeezed  feet.  These  local  societies  enlist  influ- 
ential persons,  import  neat  patterns  of  Western 
ladies’  shoes,  hold  meetings,  circulate  tracts,  and 
encourage  officials  to  make  a public  stand.  The 
T’ien  Tau  Hui,  which  is  now  run  by  the  Chinese, 
circulates  upwards  of  thirty  pieces  of  literature, 
edicts,  proclamations,  placards,  poems,  folders; 
some  in  local  dialect,  some  in  Mandarin,  some  in 
Wenli,  the  language  of  scholars;  written  by  offi- 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  181 


cials,  by  missionaries,  by  physicians  and  by  na- 
tive reformers.  Roentgen-ray  illustrations  of  the 
bound  foot  and  the  natural  foot,  portrayal  of  the 
sufferings  from  bandaging,  description  of  the  in- 
jury to  the  general  health,  arguments  showing 
the  loss  in  woman’s  practical  usefulness,  com- 
parison of  foot-binding  to  the  mutilations  of  sav- 
age tribes — all  manner  of  appeals  are  made.  As 
ulceration,  gangrene  and  death  are  tragic  inci- 
dents of  the  practice,  the  “anti”  movement  de- 
velops warmth  and  emotion.  There  are  poems  on 
the  “sorrows  of  foot-binding”  which  move  peo- 
ple to  tears,  and  one  of  these  has  been  set  to  music 
and  is  sung  with  great  effect. 

Speaking  broadly,  the  reform  has  not  reached 
farther  than  the  cities  and  the  higher  classes. 
Much  of  the  open  country  is  not  yet  aware  there 
is  such  a movement.  The  poor  fear  ridicule  and, 
besides,  they  hope  to  get  a better  bride-price  for 
their  girls.  Where  child-betrothal  prevails  the 
parents  of  a girl  feel  they  have  no  right  to  dis- 
appoint the  expectations  of  the  boy’s  family. 
Thus  people  are  tied  together  and  each  hesitates 
to  follow  his  common  sense.  One  Fokien  village 
petitioned  the  Viceroy  to  command  them  to  unbind 
their  daughters’  feet.  All  disapproved  of  the 
cruel  custom  but  no  one  had  the  courage  to  lead 
the  way. 

Chinese  from  the  big  coast  ports,  where  West- 
ern influence  is  ascendant,  will  tell  you  in  good 
faith  that  foot-binding  has  nearly  died  out.  The 
fact  is  the  release  of  the  overwhelming  majority 


182 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


of  its  victims  is  yet  to  come.  Doctor  Morrison, 
China  correspondent  of  the  London  Times  and  a 
recognized  authority,  after  traversing  the  central 
provinces  of  the  Empire  not  long  ago  recorded  it 
as  his  deliberate  opinion  that  95  per  cent,  of  the 
females  of  the  Empire  above  the  age  of  eight  are 
still  mutilated.  I think  his  estimate  too  high,  but 
I feel  sure  that  three-fourths  of  them  are  still  so 
bound.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  at  the  present  mo- 
ment there  are  in  China  seventy  million  pairs  of 
deformed,  aching,  and  unsightly  feet — the  sac- 
rifice exacted  of  its  womanhood  by  a depraved 
masculine  taste.  The  wiser  anticipate  that  it  will 
be  more  than  a generation  ere  the  custom  dies  out. 
Japan  is  in  the  forty-third  year  of  its  Era  of  En- 
lightenment ; yet  outside  the  cities  you  meet  great 
numbers  of  women  who  at  marriage  followed  the 
old  custom  of  staining  their  teeth  black  in  token 
they  have  forever  renounced  the  thought  of  at- 
tracting the  other  sex. 

But  cotton  bandages  are  not  the  only  bonds  on 
the  women  of  China. 

On  a sultry  July  morning  after  passing  the 
sedan  chairs  of  an  official  and  his  wife  I meet  a 
coolie  carrying  two  little  cloth-covered  boxes  bal- 
anced on  the  bamboo  across  his  shoulder.  In 
each  is  a child  of  five  or  six.  The  boy’s  box  has 
a tiny  open  window  that  allows  him  to  get  air  and 
see  what  is  passing;  but  the  window  of  the  other 
box  is  screened.  His  little  sister  has  to  endure 
the  heat  and  the  dark  because  she  is  a female  and 
propriety  commands  it.  Shut  away  from  light 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  183 


and  knowledge — how  symbolic  of  the  lot  of  the  sex 
in  China! 

If  in  passing  a Shensi  shop  one  looks  for  a mo- 
ment at  a woman  who  is  not  a grandmother,  she 
turns  hastily  and  slips  back  into  the  gloom  of  the 
women’s  apartment.  To  endure  the  glance  of  a 
man  is  immodest.  Towards  the  close  of  a stifling 
day  the  village  women  come  out  of  their  houses 
and  sit  on  a mat  in  front  sewing  and  enjoying  the 
coolness.  If  one  of  them  sees  a foreigner  coming 
she  scurries  into  the  house  as  a frighted  quail 
ducks  and  dodges  into  the  stubble.  Even  girls  of 
nine  shrink  away  into  the  interior  of  the  house  if 
your  eye  lights  on  them.  When  the  harvest  is  in 
full  swing  every  hand  is  needed  and  by  dawn 
mothers  and  grandmothers,  tads  and  tots,  pile  into 
a cart  and  are  off  with  the  men  folks  to  the  field. 
But  never  a female  of  from  ten  to  twenty-five  is  to 
be  seen,  and  one  might  suppose  they  had  all  been 
carried  off  by  a plague. 

On  the  occasion  of  a special  church  service  for 
old  people,  the  hospitable  wife  of  a college  presi- 
dent in  Foochow  innocently  plans  to  serve  the  vis- 
itors tea  at  her  house,  the  men  in  one  room,  the 
women  in  another.  But  it  appears  that  the  gath- 
ering of  these  aged  people  under  one  roof,  al- 
though in  different  rooms,  clashes  with  Chinese 
notions  of  propriety.  So  far  have  they  carried 
the  estrangement  of  the  sexes. 

A Hakka  tells  me  that  among  his  people  the 
etiquette  in  the  country  districts  forbids  husband 
and  wife  to  be  seen  talking  together.  Thus  a 


184 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


young  man  and  his  wife  meet  in  an  empty  lane 
and,  supposing  themselves  unobserved,  he  asks 
her  for  the  key  of  the  garden  gate.  She  throws 
it  on  the  ground  without  looking  at  him  and,  once 
indoors,  rates  him  roundly  for  speaking  to  her  in 
public.  ‘ ‘ Suppose,  ’ ’ she  says,  ‘ ‘ someone  had  seen 
us!” 

A woman  never  thinks  of  shaking  hands  with 
a man.  If  a gentleman  wishes  to  give  a lady  a 
fan,  he  does  not  hand  it  to  her  lest  their  hands 
touch,  but  places  it  beside  her.  This  sort  of  thing 
was  made  so  much  of  that  about  the  time  of  Aris- 
totle a local  prude  asked  Mencius,  “If  one’s  sister- 
in-law  is  drowning,  ought  she  to  be  drawn  out 
with  the  hand?”  To  which  the  sage  sensibly  re- 
plied, “It  is  wolfish  not  to  draw  out  a drowning 
sister-in-law.” 

Brothers  and  sisters  are  separated  at  eight  or 
ten  years  of  age  and  thenceforth  associate  only 
under  formal  conditions.  In  Chinese  literature 
nothing  is  suggestive  save  the  love-songs — this 
because  the  canons  of  propriety  never  gave  lati- 
tude for  courting  and  love  making,  so  they  were 
scandalous  from  the  first.  One  never  sees  a du- 
bious photograph  of  a Chinese  woman,  even  of  a 
Magdalen.  Our  illustrated  corset  and  underwear 
advertisements  shock  the  Chinese,  and  no  lady 
missionary  shows  them  the  photograph  of  a sister 
or  friend  taken  in  decollete.  What  notions  of  our 
modesty  they  gather  from  our  undraped  statuary, 
paintings  of  the  nude,  theatrical  posters,  and  bal- 
lets, may  be  imagined. 


An  old  Chinese  garden  at  Taiku  Flower  pagoda,  Canton 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  187 


Such  restrictions  might  be  looked  upon  as  the 
safeguards  by  which  the  women  of  China  are  kept 
as  modest  and  chaste  as  any  women  in  the  world. 
But,  balancing  their  burdens  against  those  of  the 
men,  it  is  clear  that  the  laws  governing  woman’s 
life  are  not  for  the  sake  of  society  or  the  race  so 
much  as  for  the  male  sex.  In  its  every  chapter 
Chinese  culture  is  man-made  and  betrays  the  naive 
male  view-point.  Even  the  ideographs  imbed  im- 
perishably  men’s  contempt  for  women;  thus,  re- 
peat the  character  for  “woman”  and  you  get  “to 
wrangle.”  Three  women  together  symbolizes 
“intrigue.”  “Woman”  under  “roof”  means 
“quiet,” — man’s  quiet,  mark  you,  not  woman’s. 
In  Chinese  thought  the  world  is  divided  between 
good  and  evil,  Yang  and  Yin.  Darkness  is  ‘ ‘ Yin,  ’ ’ 
cold  is  “Yin,”  earth  spirits  are  “Yin”;  and 
woman  is  “Yin.”  Although  necessary,  she  is  in- 
ferior, and  must  be  held  under  firm  control.  The 
sages  stressed  the  danger  of  letting  women  become 
educated  and  go  about  freely,  for  thus  might 
women  gain  the  upper  hand  and  wreck  society. 

The  most  beautiful  and  characteristic  art-form 
in  China — one  you  find  repeated  a thousand  times 
— is  the  roadside  “pailow”  or  ornamental  stone 
portal.  It  commemorates  always  some  act  or  life 
held  worthy  of  universal  honor.  Now,  a girl  re- 
maining for  life  unwed,  in  case  her  betrothed  died 
before  their  marriage,  is  considered  worthy  of  a 
pailow.  But  they  rear  no  pailow  to  the  youth  who 
remains  single  out  of  regard  for  his  lost  betrothed. 
Such  constancy  would  be  deemed  weak  and  ridicu- 


188 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


Ions,  rather  than  noble.  For  from  the  male  view- 
point it  is  fitting  that  woman  be  sacrificed  to  man, 
but  not  that  man  be  sacrificed  to  woman.  This 
was  why,  some  centuries  ago,  the  Chinese  held 
that  the  widow  ought  to  kill  herself  at  her  hus- 
band’s funeral ; whereas  the  notion  that  a widower 
ought  to  do  the  same  at  his  wife’s  funeral  never 
entered  the  Celestial  mind. 

The  wife  guilty  of  unfaithfulness  is  to  be  stoned, 
drowned,  or  hanged.  But  the  men  are  fair ; 
they  don’t  intend  that  morality  shall  be  “a  jug- 
handled  proposition.”  So  public  opinion  holds 
that  if  a husband  be  found  unfaithful,  his  wife  has 
a right  to  scold  him  good  and  hard ; and  he  ought 
not  to  beat  her  for  it,  either. 

A class  of  Chinese  students  were  horrified  to 
learn  from  their  teacher  that  in  America  a young 
man  proposing  marriage  to  a maiden  might  be 
refused.  To  them  the  rejection  of  a man  by  a 
mere  woman  implied  a loss  of  “face”  too  dreadful 
to  contemplate. 

A young  mandarin  taking  office  in  another  prov- 
ince may  leave  his  wife  behind  to  be  a daughter  to 
his  parents  in  their  declining  years.  Under  the 
circumstances,  nobody,  not  even  his  wife,  thinks 
the  less  of  him  if  he  consoles  himself  by  taking  a 
“secondary  wife”;  but  the  abandoned  wife  has  no 
such  means  of  “consoling”  herself.  Her  part  is 
constancy,  no  matter  how  long  her  lord’s  absence. 
Chinese  law  recognizes  but  one  wife,  and  counte- 
nances the  taking  of  a “secondary  wife”  only  in 
case  there  is  no  male  heir.  But  the  men  have 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  189 


come  to  do  about  as  they  please  and  Chinese  tell 
me  that  from  three  to  five  per  cent,  have  one  or 
more  such  concubines.  One  reason  is  that,  while  a 
man  may  not  choose  his  wife,  he  can  choose  his 
concubine ; so  he  may  have  his  love  affair  after  all. 

At  the  height  of  summer  the  proportion  of  men 
in  south  and  central  China  who  go  about  in  buff 
to  the  waist  corresponds  to  the  proportion  of  men 
in  our  Gulf  States  who  go  about  in  their  shirt- 
sleeves. The  women,  on  the  other  hand,  never  ap- 
pear save  fully  clothed  and  what  they  suffer  in 
the  damp  heat  of  the  airless  lanes  and  the  low 
dwellings  beggars  description.  A girl  playing 
tennis  with  her  arm  bare  to  the  elbow,  is  more  ex- 
posed than  any  woman  you  will  see  in  China. 

The  boy’s  upbringing  is  not  shaped  to  please 
women.  But  everything  in  the  upbringing  of  the 
girl — her  foot-binding,  “tottering  lily”  gait,  hair 
dressing,  skill  in  embroidery,  innocence,  ignorance, 
obedience — is  obviously  a catering  to  the  male. 
No  tinselled  box  of  bon-bons  is  a plainer  challenge 
for  favor  than  is  the  bride  when,  on  her  wedding 
day,  dressed  to  kill,  loaded  with  all  her  finery  and 
jewelry,  her  feet  squeezed  to  their  tiniest,  her  nails 
manicured,  her  cheeks  rouged,  her  oiled  hair  as 
stiff  and  elaborate  as  a blackwood  carving,  she 
stands  supported  on  either  hand  by  a maid  and, 
with  downcast  eye  and  expressionless  face,  en- 
dures the  inspection  of  the  wedding-guests. 

The  women  of  the  people — boat-women,  water- 
carriers,  servants,  scavengers,  fuel  gatherers — 
come  and  go  freely,  but  the  women  of  the  classes 


190 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


rarely  go  out  save  in  a closed  cart  or  a covered 
chair.  For  the  most  part  they  pass  their  lives 
within  four  walls,  away  from  the  stimulus  of  street 
and  public  resort.  They  have  few  acquaintances 
save  relatives  and,  as  life  goes  on,  their  circle  of 
friends  contracts  rather  than  enlarges.  Not  for 
them  picnics,  excursions  and  feasts.  Social  di- 
version is  organized  for  men,  not  for  women. 
Toilet,  opium-smoking,  gossiping  with  the  serv- 
ants, visits  from  a few  friends — what  a round! 
No  wonder  the  doctors  find  their  worst  cases  of 
nervous  exhaustion  among  these  victims  of  empti- 
ness and  repression. 

But  Nature  punishes  man’s  presumption. 
Shrewd  observers  agree  that  opium-smoking  and 
gambling — both  repugnant  to  the  prudence  and 
keen  property  sense  of  the  race — are  the  beset- 
ting vices  of  the  Chinese  upper  classes  because 
of  the  vacuity  of  their  lives;  and  this  is  the 
penalty  for  keeping  woman  “in  her  place.”  The 
masses  have  crippled  and  cowed  their  women  till 
they  can’t  make  a home,  and  the  classes  have 
barred  women  from  their  social  life.  Ignorant 
of  the  freshness  and  charm  that  lies  in  the  in- 
nocent association  of  the  sexes,  the  men  sought 
relief  from  ennui  in  pipe  and  dice  and  the  women 
were  beginning  to  solace  themselves  in  the  same 
way. 

Among  the  common  people  the  sexes  do  not 
greatly  differ  in  size;  but,  observing  the  great 
numbers  of  dainty  silk-clad  ladies  going  about 
the  Nanking  Exhibition,  I could  not  but  be  struck 


One  of  the  south  gates  into  the  Tartar  city.  Peking 


Temple  of  Five  Hundred  Genii,  Canton 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  193 


by  their  smallness  and  frailness.  They  were  of 
a stature  with  American  girls  of  fourteen  or 
fifteen.  They  seemed  hardly  larger  than  the 
women  of  Japan,  though  their  men  folk  are  much 
bigger  than  the  Japanese  men.  It  is  not  clear 
whether  this  diminutiveness  is  due  to  a prefer- 
ence for  the  little  operating  through  many  gener- 
ations, or  to  foot-binding,  confinement,  and  lack 
of  exercise  during  the  growing  period. 

In  the  Chinese  family  male  predominance  is 
mitigated  by  the  sanctity  of  age.  After  the  wife 
becomes  the  mother  of  a boy,  her  status  rises  and 
she  is  the  envy  of  the  women  of  India  and  Persia. 
Filial  piety  is  owed  as  much  to  the  mother  as  to 
the  father.  The  mother,  and  still  more  the  grand- 
mother, is  nearly  co-equal  with  her  spouse  in  au- 
thority over  her  children.  The  detestable  Ori- 
ental doctrine  of  the  “Three  Obediences,”  that 
woman  is  never  to  be  free,  but  must  pass  her  life 
under  the  tutelage,  first  of  father,  then  of  hus- 
band, and  finally  of  son — does  not  hold  in  its  last 
clause  for  the  daughters  of  Han. 

As  for  the  girl,  bride,  and  wife,  however,  con- 
ventionality binds  their  hearts  quite  as  cruelly 
as  their  feet.  Because  the  married  daughter 
with  her  children  is  lost  to  her  parents  and  or- 
dinarily cannot  care  for  them  in  their  old  age, 
from  a tenth  to  a twentieth  of  the  girl-babies — 
this  on  Chinese  authority — are  abandoned  or 
done  away  with  from  economic  reasons;  but  a 
boy-baby,  never.  Then,  to  escape  the  bother  of 
raising  a girl  for  some  other  family’s  benefit,  it 


194 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


is  quite  common  for  the  poor  to  give  up  their  fe- 
male children  to  parents  who  want  to  rear  wives 
for  their  sons.  There  are  whole  districts  where 
never  more  than  one  daughter  in  a family  is 
reared  by  her  parents.  This  early  separation 
of  a girl  from  her  natural  parents  is  excused  on 
the  ground  that  it  spares  the  shock  of  separa- 
tion when  she  marries!  The  girl  thus  reared  in 
the  future  bridegroom’s  family  is  likely  to  be 
treated  as  a drudge  and  naturally,  from  the 
first,  she  is  subjected  to  the  whims  of  her  in- 
tended. I heard  of  a boy  of  six  saying  to  the 
nurse-girl  who  had  neglected  his  intended,  aged 
two,  “Why  don’t  you  look  after  my  wife  better?’’ 
In  case  the  boy  dies,  the  “widowed’’  girl’s  hand 
is  disposed  of  by  his  parents  and  in  the  match 
little  is  considered  save  the  bride-price. 

Even  when  the  girl  is  reared  at  home,  she  is 
liable  to  be  betrothed  at  an  early  age,  and  this 
grotesque  practice  is  fraught  with  the  most  sin- 
ister possibilities.  In  one  case,  the  son  of  a na- 
tive presiding  elder  was  betrothed  when  a child 
to  a little  girl.  At  the  proper  age  they  were  mar- 
ried, and  then  it  was  found  that  the  bride  was  an 
idiot,  her  mental  growth  having  been  arrested 
by  an  attack  of  scarlet  fever  years  before.  After 
a year  the  son  could  stand  it  no  longer  and  the 
girl  was  sent  back  to  her  parents.  The  action 
was  denounced  as  a breach  of  custom  and  the 
elder  had  to  stand  a church  trial.  He  was  found 
guilty,  every  Chinese  voting  against  him  and 
every  missionary  for  him ! Again,  the  little 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  195 


daughter  of  a farmer  was  betrothed  to  the  son 
of  a chair  coolie.  She  showed  talent,  studied, 
rose  in  the  schools,  was  helped  through  college, 
took  a medical  course  and  became  a successful 
physician.  Nevertheless,  when  the  time  came,  she 
was  obliged  by  inexorable  custom  to  bow  to  the 
arrangement  made  for  her  in  infancy  and  ruin 
her  life  by  marrying  a dolt  too  worthless  to  hold 
even  a chair-bearer’s  job. 

There  is  pathos  in  the  rising  protest  of  the  Chi- 
nese girl  against  early  betrothal.  She  does  not 
resent  being  yoked  for  life  to  a man  she  has  never 
seen.  But  she  does  beg  of  her  parents  a hus- 
band who  is  fit  for  her  now  and  a family-in-law 
that  is  now  equal  in  social  standing  to  her  own, 
instead  of  being  handed  about  in  pursuance  of  a 
bargain  entered  into  years  before  when  no  one 
could  tell  what  her  intended  or  his  family  might 
become. 

At  best  the  maiden’s  marriage  is  arranged  for 
her  with  a young  man  eligible  so  far  as  the  pro- 
fessional match-maker  can  be  trusted;  and  there 
is  a proverb,  “Ten  match-makers,  eleven  liars.” 
The  horoscopes  of  the  young  people  are  com- 
pared, a card  bearing  the  name  and  age  of  the 
girl  lies  for  three  days  in  front  of  the  suitor’s 
ancestral  tablets,  and  if  no  ill  omen  appears  she 
is  taken.  Not  until  the  wedding  does  either 
know  the  other’s  name  or  look  upon  the  other’s 
face.  No  wooing,  no  love-making,  no  romance. 

Are  they  happy?  Some  observers — Germans 
and  English,  mark  you,  not  American — judge  that 


196 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


such  matches  turn  out  as  well  as  our  own  matings 
of  free  choice.  They  argue  from  the  general 
domestic  peace,  and  from  the  distress  some  hus- 
bands show  when  their  wives  are  about  to  un- 
dergo a hospital  operation.  At  such  a crisis  the 
hidden  affection  meets  the  eye.  So  they  infer 
that  the  adaptability  of  the  sexes  in  heart  matters, 
when  their  expectations  have  not  been  keyed 
high,  is  greater  than  we  have  supposed.  Now, 
it  must  be  acknowledged  that  how  happy  we  can 
be  in  our  lot  depends  much  on  our  notion  of  hap- 
piness. Miss  Plumblossom  has  never  included 
romantic  love,  tenderness  and  chivalry  in  her 
idea  of  a good  husband;  and  so,  provided  he 
does  n’t  beat  her  and  she  has  children  upon  whom 
she  can  lavish  the  pent-up  wealth  of  her  affection, 
she  may  find  life  tolerable. 

Still,  forcing  the  natural  feelings  is  a danger- 
ous business.  The  self-sacrifice  and  self-efface- 
ment that  preserves  domestic  harmony  in  China 
is  borne  chiefly  by  the  wives.  The  constant  ef- 
fort at  self-control  and  the  ruthless  repression 
of  the  feelings  cost  something.  Witness  the  nu- 
merous suicides  of  young  wives.  They  throw 
themselves  into  wells  or  canals,  or  swallow  raw 
opium.  When  the  opium  is  harvested,  there  is 
a crop  of  female  suicides.  Insanity  is  distress- 
ingly frequent  among  women.  The  prevalence 
of  neurasthenia  among  ladies  refutes  the  saying 
that  the  Chinese  have  no  nerves.  Doctors  as- 
sert there  is  much  heart  lesion  among  women 
owing  to  emotional  stress  and  sorrowing.  The 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  197 


faces  of  wives  are  stamped  with  pain,  patience 
and  gentle  resignation  rather  than  happiness. 
Chinese  women  tell  me  the  confidences  made  to 
them  and  their  friends  betray  widespread  unhap- 
piness. The  custom  of  “crying  one’s  wrongs” 
is  significant.  When  a woman  simply  cannot 
stand  it  any  longer,  she  proclaims  her  woes  to 
the  world.  A thousand  miles  up  the  Yangtse 
I saw  the  wife  of  a tea-house  keeper  stand  on  the 
bank  and  yell  to  hundreds  of  grinning  sampan 
people  her  opinion  of  the  man.  Hurrying 
through  a hamlet  late  at  night  we  came  upon  a 
solitary  woman  ululating  her  grievances  to  high 
heaven.  Lights  were  out  and  all  were  asleep 
but  she  stood,  lonely  and  pathetic,  in  the  dark- 
ness repeating  her  cry,  and  took  no  notice  of  us 
by-passers. 

The  disposal  of  superfluous  female  infants  is  a 
great  strain  on  the  mothers.  In  the  presence  of 
a lady  missionary  whom  they  supposed  ignorant 
of  their  dialect  a number  of  country-women  fell 
to  confessing  the  number  of  girl  babies  they  had 
made  away  with.  Finally  she  could  contain  her- 
self no  longer  and  cried,  “Oh,  how  could  you  be 
so  cruel!”  The  women  turned  on  her  with  al- 
most savage  vehemence.  “Do  you  think  we 
did  n’t  care?  Would  we  do  it  if  we  did  n’t  know 
the  new  one  would  take  the  rice  out  of  the  mouths 
of  the  others?”  “Since  then,”  the  lady  added, 
“I  appreciate  how  infanticide  is  forced  on  par- 
ents by  economic  pressure.” 

For  the  Chinese  bride  her  mother-in-law  is  no 


198 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


joking  matter.  At  sixteen  or  seventeen  the  girl 
becomes  virtually  the  slave  of  this  woman,  and 
her  husband  dares  not  utter  a word  on  her  be- 
half. When  the  baby  comes,  it  is  not  hers  to 
rear;  it  is  to  be  brought  up  just  as  her  husband’s 
mother  says.  The  educated  Christian  girl  is 
loath  to  marry  into  a heathen  family  for  fear  of 
having  to  misrear  or  lose  her  children  under  the 
dictate  of  an  ignorant  and  superstitious  mother- 
in-law.  The  situation  is  really  impossible  and 
breeds  dark  tragedies.  A woman  doctor  tells 
of  being  summoned  in  haste  by  a frantic  husband 
and  finding  the  young  wife  in  travail  with  her 
mother-in-law  sitting  on  her.  The  girl  was  roll- 
ing her  eyes,  and  if  the  harridan  had  not  been 
pulled  off  she  would  have  died  in  a few  minutes. 
Still,  there  are  checks  on  a harsh  mother-in-law. 
If  the  wife’s  family  is  strong,  they  can  make  her 
much  trouble.  Then  the  threat  of  suicide  is 
potent,  for  one  who  commits  suicide  on  your  ac- 
count can  haunt  you.  Besides  it  makes  a great 
scandal.  A friend  of  mine  saw  a woman  whose 
daughter-in-law  had  killed  herself  on  her  account 
beat  the  dead  girl’s  face  in  impotent  rage  at  be- 
ing thus  foiled  and  brought  to  shame. 

In  the  West  suicides  are  three  or  four  times 
as  frequent  among  men  as  among  women,  part 
of  the  difference  answering  no  doubt  to  a real 
difference  in  the  psychology  of  the  sexes.  That 
among  the  Chinese  suicide  is  five  or  ten  times 
as  frequent  among  females  as  among  males 
throws  a piercing  ray  of  light  on  the  happiness 


(rate  between  two  provinces  in  West  China  Scenic  archway  at  the  crest  of  a 

mountain  pass 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  201 


of  women  in  a man-made  world.  Most  of  these 
are  young  married  women  and  young  widows. 
The  former  take  their  lives  because  they  are  un- 
happy, the  latter  usually  because  they  think  it 
the  fitting  thing  to  do.  (For,  mark  you,  it  is  not 
yet  two  centuries  since  it  was  decreed  that  offi- 
cial honors  were  no  longer  to  be  conferred  upon 
widows  who  slew  themselves  at  their  husband’s 
death.)  Now,  the  bonds  that  drive  the  brides 
to  desperation  and  the  ideas  of  wifely  propriety 
that  impel  young  widows  to  make  away  with 
themselves  originated  in  the  minds  of  men  and 
have  never  been  molded  by  so  much  as  a feather’s 
touch  by  the  sex  they  affect.  This  great  pre- 
ponderance of  female  suicide  is  a grim  com- 
mentary on  the  theory  that  the  happiness  of 
women  lies  in  their  guardianship  by  the  other  sex. 

Nothing  could  be  plainer  than  that  woman’s 
lot  in  China  is  not  of  her  own  fashioning,  but  has 
been  shaped  by  male  tastes  and  prejudices,  with- 
out regard  to  what  the  women  themselves  think 
about  it.  The  men  have  determined  woman’s 
sphere  as  well  as  man’s.  The  ancient  sages — 
all  men — molded  the  institutions  that  bear  upon 
women,  and  it  is  male  comment,  not  really  pub- 
lic opinion,  that  enforces  the  conventionalities 
that  crush  her.  By  wit,  will,  or  worth,  the  in- 
dividual woman  may  slip  from  under  the  thumb 
of  the  individual  man — there  are  many  such 
cases — but  never  could  the  sex  free  itself  from  the 
domination  of  the  male  sex.  The  men  had  all 
the  artillery — the  time-hallowed  teachings  and 


202 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


institutions, — and  all  the  small  arms — current 
opinion  and  comment.  Cribbed  and  confined,  the 
women  were  without  schooling,  locomotion,  ac- 
quaintance, conversation,  stimulus,  contact  with 
affairs,  access  to  ideas,  or  opportunity  to  work 
out  their  own  point  of  view. 

It  is  not  that  the  individual  man  selfishly  rules 
the  woman.  It  is  not  even  that  the  one  sex  has  de- 
liberately brought  the  other  into  subjection.  It 
is  rather  that  men,  regarding  themselves  as  the 
“Yang”  principle  of  the  species,  and  perfectly 
sure  of  their  own  superiority  in  wisdom  and 
virtue,  have  settled  what  is  fit  and  proper,  not 
only  for  themselves,  but  for  women  too. 

It  all  came  out  beautifully  in  a conversation  I 
had  with  a Chinese  gentleman  who  is  promoting 
a revival  of  Confucianism.  I admitted  that  the 
Chinese  have  better  ideas  than  we  as  to  what 
children  owe  their  parents.  “Still,”  I added, 
“you  ’ll  admit,  we  have  juster  ideas  as  to  the 
treatment  of  women.”  “Not  at  all,”  he  replied. 
“The  place  Confucianism  assigns  to  women  is 
more  reasonable  than  that  of  the  Christian  West.” 
“But  why  should  women  be  so  subordinated?” 
“Because  women  are  very  hard  to  control. 
You  can  never  tell  what  they  will  be  up  to.  At 
the  bottom  of  every  trouble,  there  is  a woman.” 
“Isn’t  that  due,”  I asked,  “to  your  depriving 
women  of  the  educational  opportunities  which 
they  once  enjoyed?” 

“No,  it  was  precisely  experience  of  the  dif- 
ficulty of  keeping  women  under  control  when 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  203 


they  are  educated  that  led  our  forefathers  to  les- 
sen their  schooling.” 

“Then  you  would  shut  girls  out  of  school?” 

“No,  I wouldn’t  go  so  far,”  he  replied.  “Let 
them  be  taught  to  read  and  write.” 

“Nothing  more?” 

“Possibly.  But  it  should  be  very  different 
from  the  education  given  to  boys.” 

“For  example?” 

“Why,  teach  the  girl  household  arts  and  ethics 
so  she  will  know  her  duties  as  daughter,  wife  and 
mother.” 

“Would  you  teach  her  her  rights  as  well  as  her 
duties?”  I insinuated. 

“No,  no.  That  is  quite  unnecessary.” 

My  frank  Confucian  went  on  to  deplore  that 
nowadays  in  Hong  Kong  Chinese  ladies  come 
and  go  in  the  streets  “just  like  harlots.” 
“ Surely,”  I protested,  “such  freedom  makes 
them  happier  and  that  is  something.”  “No,  the 
unity  of  the  family  should  be  put  above  individual 
happiness,  and  that  unity  is  found  in  the  unop- 
posed will  of  the  husband.” 

How  Roman  it  all  is — just  the  views  that  Livy 
puts  in  the  mouth  of  Cato  the  Elder  I1  Man,  the 

i “ Recollect  all  the  institutions  respecting  the  sex,  by  which 
our  forefathers  restrained  them  and  subjected  them  to  their  hus- 
bands; and  yet,  even  with  the  help  of  all  these  restrictions,  they 
can  scarcely  be  kept  within  bounds.  If,  then,  you  suffer  them  to 
throw  these  off  one  by  one,  to  tear  them  all  asunder,  and,  at  last,  to  be 
set  on  an  equal  footing  with  yourselves,  can  you  imagine  that  they 
will  be  any  longer  tolerable?  Suffer  them  once  to  arrive  at  an 
equality  with  you,  and  they  will  from  that  moment  become  your 
superiors.” 

10 


204 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


main  stem  of  the  race,  woman,  a “side  issue,”  as 
Prentice  put  it.  When,  a couple  of  years  ago, 
the  prefect  proposed  a school  for  girls  at  Feng- 
siangfu,  an  old  scholar  exclaimed  “Open  a girls’ 
school ! When  women  take  to  reading,  what  will 
there  be  for  the  men  to  do?” 

Of  course,  hearing  men  harp  on  it  so  much, 
Chinese  women  come  to  believe  they  are  stupid 
and  need  control.  Still,  some  find  their  way  to 
a sense  of  grievance,  even  when  no  foreigner  has 
put  into  their  heads  the  idea  of  “rights.” 
Some  years  ago  nine  Cantonese  maidens 
drowned  themselves  together  one  night  in  the 
Pearl  River  rather  than  accept  the  lot  of  the  wife. 
In  three  districts  in  central  Kuangtung,  where  a 
girl  can  always  get  work  at  silk-winding,  thou- 
sands of  girls  have  formed  themselves  into  anti- 
matrimonial  associations,  the  members  of  which 
refuse  to  live  with  the  husband  more  than  the 
customary  three  days.  Then  they  take  advantage 
of  their  legal  right  “to  visit  mother”  and  never 
return  save  on  certain  days  or  after  a term  of 
years.  If  the  parents  attempt  to  restore  the  run- 
away bride  to  her  husband  she  drowns  herself  or 
takes  opium ; so  parents  and  magistrates  have  had 
to  let  the  girls  have  their  way.  By  presenting 
herself  in  her  husband’s  home  on  certain  festival 
days  the  bride  keeps  her  wifely  status,  and  if  her 
spouse  takes  to  himself  a more  tractable  mate, 
she  becomes  the  “number  one”  wife,  and  the  mis- 
tress of  the  other. 

It  is  a striking  illustration  of  what  women  can 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  205 


do  when  they  have  a chance  at  self-support.  In 
general,  however,  it  is  foreign  influence  rather 
than  industrial  opportunity  that  is  emancipating 
the  women.  Christianity  is  doing  its  share. 
The  reading  of  the  New  Testament  exalts  women 
in  their  own  eyes  and  in  the  eyes  of  others.  The 
radiant  peace  and  uplift  of  soul  I have  seen  on 
some  Christian  faces  reveal  what  a moral  treasure 
the  Chinese  have  kept  locked  up  all  these  cen- 
turies. I do  not  wonder  that  villagers  took  a 
certain  saintly  Bible  woman  to  be  “some  relative 
of  God.”  The  missionary  home  is  a silent  but 
telling  object  lesson.  After  a woman  missionary 
had  been  talking  to  a group  of  women  about 
Heaven,  one  of  them  said,  “It  would  be  heaven 
enough  for  me  to  have  my  husband  walk  beside 
me  on  the  street  as  yours  does  with  you.”  The 
converts  are  taught  to  cherish  their  daughter  and 
to  give  her  schooling.  They  are  forbidden  to 
override  her  will  in  marriage  and  are  urged  to 
inquire  into  the  young  man’s  disposition  and 
to  consider  whether  he  can  make  her  happy. 
The  girl  is  to  see  him,  or  at  least  hear  all 
about  him,  and  may  reject  him  without  incurring 
reproach. 

As  in  foot-unbinding,  so  in  mind-unbinding, 
the  missionaries  have  been  pioneers.  The  early 
pupils  of  their  schools  are  now  grandmothers, 
while  the  first  class  of  non-mission  girls  was 
graduated  only  three  years  ago.  At  first,  to  be 
sure,  they  administered  knowledge  in  homeopathic 
doses.  In  the  early  years  of  one  school  the  girls 


206 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


were  taught  to  read,  but  not  to  write,  lest  they 
pen  notes  to  the  boys!  In  the  same  school  they 
taught  just  Bible,  and  the  girls  memorized  great 
quantities.  The  pupils  could  repeat  you  Genesis 
by  the  hour,  skipping  from  Ch.  IX  to  Ch.  XVII, 
if  you  liked,  and  taking  up  the  thread  again  with 
perfect  readiness.  Twenty  years  ago  the  course 
was  enriched  by  natural  theology,  Church  history, 
arithmetic,  geography  and  music.  Five  years  ago 
English  and  history  were  added.  In  another 
school — British — I found  the  girls  feasting  from 
the  following  menu:  “ Forenoon — New  Testa- 
ment, text  with  exposition.  Afternoon — Old 
Testament  history.’ ’ 

The  missionaries  feel  the  ground  swell  of  the 
great  “woman’s  movement”  at  home  and  their 
ideas  are  continually  broadening.  Granted  they 
have  taught  the  girls  obedience  and  are  proud 
when  parents  report  that  their  daughter  from  the 
mission  school  is  the  most  dutiful  of  their  children. 
But  every  lady  principal  of  a mission  school  is  at 
heart  a sworn  enemy  of  the  Chinese  subjection  of 
women.  That  is  not  her  role,  of  course,  and  she 
will  fence  with  you  at  first;  but  finally,  if  you 
seem  trustworthy,  she  will  own  up.  She  does  not 
egg  the  girls  on  to  assert  this  or  that  right,  but 
she  strives  to  build  up  in  them  a personality  that 
will  not  accept  the  old  status.  One  doctor  in 
charge  of  a women’s  medical  school  exhorts  her 
young  women  to  shun  marriage  on  the  present 
terms.  When  a mission-school  girl  horrifies  her 
family  by  refusing  to  abide  by  a child-betrothal, 


Xo  chance  for  them 


•Toss  house,  Foochow,  and  Baby  Tower  where  girl  infants 
are  thrown  when  not  wanted 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  209 


her  teachers,  though  never  interfering,  give  her 
“moral  support.” 

Education,  of  course,  delays  marriage.  Ten 
years  ago,  most  of  the  girls  entered  the  high 
school  betrothed,  but  now  they  are  teasing  their 
parents  to  give  them  an  education  first,  and  many 
girls  of  nineteen  or  twenty  are  not  yet  engaged. 
One  begins  even  to  meet  the  Chinese  school-mis- 
tress, who  teaches  awhile  before  marrying.  With 
the  establishing  of  numerous  schools  for  girls  by 
the  Chinese  themselves  within  the  last  five  years, 
there  has  come  a great  demand  for  educated 
Chinese  women,  and  the  graduates  of  the  mission 
schools  are  sought  as  teachers,  matrons,  and  even 
principals.  Fathers  who  turned  a deaf  ear  to 
their  daughter’s  plea  for  an  education  are  relent- 
ing now  that  they  hear  of  the  fine  salaries  educated 
young  women  are  bringing  to  their  parents. 

The  taste  for  the  prettyfied,  insipid  doll-wife  is 
going  out  wherever  the  other  type  is  known.  The 
college  young  man  prefers  an  educated  wife  and  in 
the  matrimonial  market  the  girls  with  schooling  go 
off  like  hot  cakes.  The  lady  principal,  who  used 
to  receive  such  inquiries  only  from  parents,  is  now 
frequently  called  upon  by  very  polite  young  men 
who  inquire  minutely  into  the  scholarship  and 
accomplishments  of  this  or  that  pupil.  Can  she 
sing?  Can  she  play  the  piano?  Does  she  know 
English?  Formerly  the  inquirer  mentioned  the 
girl  as  “the  daughter  of  So-and-So”;  now  he 
speaks  of  her  as  “Miss  So-and-So.”  The  smitten 
never  addresses  himself  directly  to  the  charmer, 


210 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


but  his  parents  negotiate  with  her  parents  and 
presently  the  wedding  cards  are  out. 

Inch  by  inch  the  old  customs  are  yielding. 
Courtship  is  unheard  of ; but  here  and  there  young 
people  converse  under  parental  eyes.  Even  when 
they  may  not  talk  together,  they  are  permitted 
to  see  each  other  across  a room;  or  photographs 
are  exchanged.  In  any  case,  the  young  people  in- 
sist on  knowing  what  kind  of  a parti  is  proposed 
for  them.  The  rearing  marriage  and  the  child- 
betrothal  have  vanished  from  enlightened  circles. 
Strange  to  relate,  the  high  school  girls  do  not 
greatly  object  to  a match  arranged  for  them. 
What  they  are  wildly  athirst  for  is  not  Romance 
so  much  as  Freedom.  Freedom  from  parents, 
from  husband,  from  mother-in-law,  from  strang- 
ling conventionalities.  They  hear  of  the  larger 
life  open  to  their  sisters  of  the  West  and  they 
wildly  beat  their  tender  wings  against  the  gilded 
wires  of  their  cage. 

The  new  opportunities  alter  the  relation  of 
mother  to  daughter.  The  mother  is  old-fashioned 
and  no  mentor  for  Angelina.  As  an  educated 
young  lady  put  it,  ‘ ‘ Really,  it  is  the  daughter  who 
must  act  the  chaperone.  Mother’s  ideas  of  pro- 
priety and  conversation  are  so  different  from 
those  of  the  new  conditions  that  I am  having  con- 
tinually to  make  suggestions  to  her.” 

In  Tientsin,  Hong  Kong  and  Shanghai,  girls  of 
the  well-to-do  classes  imagine  that  “Western, 
style”  means  pure  freedom,  and  do  not  realize 
the  unspoken  restraints  our  young  people  are 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  211 


under.  These  “liberty  girls,”  as  they  are  called, 
think  they  must  settle  their  heart  affairs  by  them- 
selves, quite  unaware  how  often  parental  guid- 
ance prevents  our  daughters  making  a mistake. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  to  get  any  freedom  at  all  in 
heart  matters,  the  girl  has  to  elope,  and  naturally 
such  matches  rarely  turn  out  well.  One  school- 
girl, in  order  to  avoid  having  a distasteful  mar- 
riage forced  upon  her,  ran  off  to  Japan  with  two 
students  and  from  there  wrote  her  parents  that  she 
had  n’t  yet  made  up  her  mind  which  she  loved  best 
and  would  marry  1 

Towards  spring  the  water  of  a frost-bound 
Northern  lake  becomes  so  deoxygenated  that  if  a 
hole  is  cut  in  the  ice  the  fishes  press  so  frantically 
to  the  life-giving  air  that  some  are  pushed  out  on 
to  the  ice.  Nevertheless,  oxygen  is  good  for  fish. 
Just  so,  when  foreign  example  breaks  a hole  in 
the  rigid  custom  that  confines  Chinese  woman- 
hood, the  eager  rush  of  young  women  toward  the 
life-giving  liberty  and  knowledge  may  leave  some 
of  them  clear  outside  their  native  element. 
Nevertheless,  liberty  and  knowledge  are  good  for 
young  women. 

The  schools  under  missionary  control,  however, 
meet  the  current  need  better  than  the  govern- 
ment schools.  A noble  Chinese  woman  physician, 
a graduate  of  the  University  of  Michigan,  tells 
me  that  at  their  own  girls’  schools  the  girls  learn 
license  rather  than  liberty.  She  makes  the  point 
that  only  a Christian  education  gives  the  girls  the 
moral  restraints  that  are  necessary  if  they  are  to 


212 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


be  free  from  the  old  tutelage.  She  is  right.  It  is 
a trying  world  the  educated  Chinese  girl  enters, 
for  the  young  men  are  far  from  ready  to  appre- 
ciate her  or  show  her  the  delicacy  and  chivalry  that 
environ  our  American  girls.  “How  long  will  it 
be,”  I asked  a Manchu  lady  familiar  with  life  East 
and  West,  “before  your  mothers  will  let  their 
daughters  go  buggy-riding  of  an  evening  with 
your  college  boys?”  Like  a flash  came  the  an- 
swer, “A  hundred  years!” 

Among  the  thoughtful  the  conviction  spreads 
that  China  can  never  be  great  while  the  mothers 
of  each  generation  are  left  ignorant  and  uncared 
for.  They  are  coming  to  realize  the  role  of  the 
mother  in  molding  the  character  of  her  sons. 
China  needs,  above  all,  men , of  a high  unwaver- 
ing integrity,  and  she  will  not  grow  them  while 
the  impressible  boyhood  years  are  passed  in 
the  company  of  an  unschooled,  narrow-minded,  de- 
spised, neglected  woman.  Certain  missionaries 
overlooked,  at  first,  the  strategic  position  of  the 
mother,  and  were  presently  horrified  to  find  the 
children  of  Christian  men  reverting  to  heathenism 
because  their  mothers  had  been  left  untaught ! 

We  know  that  the  mothers  of  Confucius  and 
Mencius  had  a great  share  in  forming  the  charac- 
ter of  their  illustrious  sons,  and  it  is  significant 
that  the  Chinese  have  brought  forth  not  one 
great  man  since  they  took  to  binding  the  feet  and 
the  minds  of  their  daughters.  All  who  work 
with  the  women  of  the  yellow  race  are  enthu- 
siastic over  their  possibilities.  But  no  testi- 


One  of  two  hundred  day  schools  organized  by  a 
Foochow  missionary 


A bride’s  canopy,  Peking 


UNBINDING  THE  WOMEN  OF  CHINA  215 


monials  are  needed.  Their  faces  are  full  of 
character — as  fine  as  the  faces  of  women  any- 
where. All  the  railroads  that  may  be  built,  all 
the  mines  that  may  be  opened,  all  the  trade  that 
may  be  fostered,  cannot  add  half  as  much  to  the 
happiness  of  the  Chinese  people  as  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  greatest  of  their  “undeveloped  re- 
sources”— their  womanhood. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 

IT  was  vesper  service  at  the  Lama  temple  in 
Peking.  A score  of  young  priests,  with 
shaven  polls,  sat  on  low  benches  amid  the  shining 
altars,  images,  and  candelabra,  while  the  sweet 
incense  wreathed  and  rose  before  the  great  golden 
Buddha.  Cross-legged  on  a dais,  sat  the  leader, 
a wrinkled  Thibetan,  arrayed  in  gorgeous  vest- 
ments of  gold  brocade.  Before  each  cantor  lay  a 
pile  of  long  parchment  slips,  containing  the  even- 
ing liturgy  in  Thibetan  characters.  The  words 
of  the  service  were  chanted  rapidly  in  unison,  in 
a deep,  musical  tone,  and  the  effect  was  like  the 
droning  of  bees  from  a thousand  hives.  Ever 
and  anon  came  bursts  of  wild  clangor  that  went 
through  one  like  a knife;  cymbals  would  clash, 
drums  would  throb,  and  horns  of  fantastic 
Chaldean  shape  would  snarl.  It  was  a tapestry, 
— for  the  ear,  not  for  the  eye, — weird  arabesques 
of  instrumental  sound  thrown  against  a back- 
ground of  deep  droning. 

Over  against  these  set  the  achievements  of  a 
certain  Swedish-American  missionary  I found  in 
a district  town  in  the  most  opium-ridden  and  foot- 
bound  province  of  China.  After  eight  years  of 
work  he  has  gathered  a band  of  two  hundred 

216 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


217 


Chinese  Christians,  most  of  them  men  and  from 
the  country.  Thirty  are  school-teachers,  of 
whom  twelve  have  the  first  degree.  Many  of 
his  members  are  prominent  people,  though  none 
are  officials.  The  mandarins  are  very  friendly, 
but  he  is  slow  to  cultivate  intimacy  with  them, 
lest  his  converts  who  have  lawsuits  should  im- 
portune him  for  his  “influence.”  He  allows 
none  of  his  flock  to  disobey  the  Anti-Opium  Edict, 
and  lately  he  cast  out  twenty  members  for  grow- 
ing poppy.  Recently  he  had  a revival  in  his 
church,  and  many  openly  confessed  their  sins 
and  made  reparation.  There  is  nothing  flabby 
about  the  Christianity  that  prompts  men  to  lay 
bare  murder  and  robbery.  Being  a follower  of 
Luther,  he  does  not  require  his  flock  to  keep  the 
Sabbath  in  the  Puritan  sense.  He  maintains  an 
opium  refuge,  where  in  the  winter  one  hundred 
and  sixteen  smokers  were  treated  from  a month 
to  six  weeks,  and  most  were  permanently  cured. 
There  is  a school  where  thirty  girls  follow  a nine- 
years  course.  At  his  instigation,  a “natural- 
foot”  society  was  formed  among  the  leading 
Chinese,  and  two  hundred  non-Christian  girls 
and  women  have  unbound  their  feet.  Who  will 
deny  that  this  is  “religion  pure  and  undefiled”? 

The  religious  plane  of  the  Chinese  will  hardly 
command  the  admiration  of  any  Occidental,  how- 
ever catholic  his  sympathy.  The  followers  of 
Confucius,  it  is  true,  promulgate  a pure  and 
lofty  morality,  but  Confucianism  is  not  really  a 
religion  at  all,  but  an  ethical  system,  and  has, 


218 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


moreover,  little  authority  outside  the  learned 
clan.  Taoism,  starting  as  mysticism,  has  degen- 
erated into  a hotch-potch  of  the  crudest  and 
tawdriest  superstitions.  As  for  the  Buddhism 
of  China,  let  no  one  look  to  find  in  it  the  golden 
thoughts  of  the  Great  Teacher  or  even  the  spir- 
itual elevation  of  the  Buddhism  one  finds  to-day 
in  Burma  and  Japan.  To  the  spirit  of  the  Sutras 
it  is  about  as  foreign  as  the  Coptic  church 
of  Abyssinia  is  to  the  spirit  of  the  Gospels.  Not 
one  priest  in  a hundred  has  any  glimmering  of 
the  Eight-fold  Path.  The  nunneries  have  a very 
bad  name.  Only  now  and  then  in  the  monaster- 
ies does  one  come  upon  reminiscences  of  the  great 
traditions  of  the  faith. 

To  the  ranging  eye,  the  fruits  brought  forth 
by  the  religions  of  China  appear  to  be  number- 
less temples,  dingy  and  neglected;  countless 
dusty  idols  portraying  hideous  deities  in  violent 
attitudes  expressive  of  the  worst  passions;  an 
army  of  ignorant  priests,  as  skeptical  as  Roman 
augurs,  engaged  in  divining,  exorcising,  and 
furnishing  funeral  ceremonies  for  gain;  and  a 
laity  superstitious  and  irreverent,  given  to  per- 
functory kotowing  and  prayer  prompted  by  the 
most  practical  motives.  The  passing  traveler 
notes  sacred  trees  with  bits  of  red  cloth  flutter- 
ing from  the  twigs;  brick  screens  built  just  in- 
side gateways  and  doorways  to  check  the  invisi- 
ble, rushing  demons  of  the  air;  wayside  shrines 
ever  redolent  with  lighted  joss-sticks  left  for 
good  luck  by  passing  coolies;  cliffs  carved  into 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


219 


hundreds  of  niches,  each  sheltering  the  effigy  of 
some  god  or  saint;  idols  with  faces  repulsive 
from  the  sacrificial  blood  smeared  on  their 
lips ; jutting  boulders  and  fantastic  rocks  black- 
ened with  incense  smoke  and  stuck  up  with  the 
feathers  of  sacrificed  fowls;  and  house-boats 
protected  at  every  point  by  a smoking  joss-stick, 
with  the  bow  red  with  the  blood  of  the  cock  killed 
at  the  outset  of  the  voyage. 

In  a temple  in  Soochow  one  sees  in  a corner 
a great  heap  of  broken  idols,  the  massive  frag- 
ments showing  the  sticks,  straw,  and  mud  out  of 
which  they  were  made.  Thereby  hangs  a tale 
that  might  have  been  brought  to  Rome  from 
Friesland  in  the  eighth  century.  Not  long  ago 
a reforming  official,  observing  that  idols  had  be- 
come a ruinous  infatuation  among  his  people, 
drew  a great  crowd  by  announcing  a duel  to  the 
death  between  himself  and  the  idols.  Putting 
one  end  of  a rope  about  his  own  neck  and  the 
other  about  the  neck  of  a big  idol,  he  said,  “If 
the  idol  is  stronger  than  I am,  I shall  be  stran- 
gled; but  if  I am  the  stronger,  the  idol  will  fall.” 
Trusting  to  his  bull  neck,  the  mandarin  pulled, 
the  idols  tumbled,  and  since  then  the  spirit  of  St. 
Thomas  is  abroad  in  Soochow. 

At  this  moment  the  religious  impact  of  the 
"West  upon  China  is  delivered  by  fourteen  hun- 
dred Roman  Catholic  missionaries  and  four  thou- 
sand Protestant  missionaries,  of  whom,  how- 
ever, fully  a thousand  are  wives,  and  therefore 
not  always  free  to  do  full  work.  The  Roman 


220 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


Catholic  work  is  three  centuries  old,  and  more 
than  a million  baptized  Chinese  are  in  its  fold. 
The  Protestant  work  is  the  growth  of  a century, 
and  about  half  a million  are  within  its  churches, 
although  its  communicants  do  not  exceed  two 
hundred  thousand.  Most  of  what  follows  re- 
lates to  Protestant  missions,  for  the  writer  has 
had  little  opportunity  to  come  into  touch  with  the 
Koman  Catholic  corps. 

To  the  untutored  Chinamen  the  presence  of  the 
missionary  is  a puzzle.  They  simply  cannot  im- 
agine human  beings  exiling  themselves  from  their 
native  land  for  the  love  of  men  on  the  other 
side  of  the  globe.  So  they  frame  sundry  theories 
to  explain  the  thing  to  themselves.  One  the- 
ory is  that  the  missionaries  are  secret  political 
agents  bent  on  gaining  an  influence  over  the 
Chinese,  and  then  swaying  them  to  the  advan- 
tage of  their  respective  governments.  Only  of 
late  have  the  natives  come  to  realize  that  the 
strangers  are  not  sent  by  their  governments,  but 
by  religious  groups.  According  to  another  the- 
ory, China  is  so  excellent  and  renowned  that 
the  red-haired  barbarians  come  to  live  there  for 
the  mere  pleasure  of  it.  As  for  their  self-deny- 
ing works  of  benevolence,  these  are  supposed  to 
be  prompted  by  the  desire  to  acquire  merit. 

Unlike  the  Mohammedan  end  of  Asia,  the  Far 
East  is  not  intense  in  its  religious  beliefs.  The 
Chinese  are  Gallios  in  such  matters,  and  their 
occasional  mobbings  of  missionaries  are  not  in 
the  least  outbreaks  of  fanatical  intolerance.  They 


Hi^-li  altar  of  a Buddhist  temple  of  the 
Kushan  Monastery 


Temple  in  a gorge,  Kushan  Monastery 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


223 


are  in  part  explosions  of  anti-foreign  feeling 
generated  in  this  most  patient  of  peoples  by 
opium  wars,  the  enforced  opium  trade,  the  com- 
pulsory opening  of  ports,  extra-territoriality, 
high-handed  seizures  of  territory,  and  like  buf- 
fets to  national  pride  inflicted  by  the  mailed  fist 
of  Western  powers.  The  missionary  has  no 
part  in  these,  but  when  the  black  thunder-clouds 
of  hatred  roll  up,  he,  as  the  nearest  foreigner, 
receives  the  lightning  stroke.  Other  violences 
against  him  have  been  deliberately  stirred  up  by 
the  slanders  set  afloat  among  the  credulous 
masses  by  the  literary  and  official  class,  who  fear 
lest  the  missionary  introduce  ideas  which  will 
make  it  harder  to  maintain  the  old  system  of 
governing  and  exploiting  the  common  people. 
But  for  what  is  miscalled  “forcing  Christianity 
on  China,” — by  which  is  meant  requiring  the 
intolerant  Imperial  Government  to  allow  teach- 
ers of  religion  to  travel,  live,  and  work  un- 
molested in  all  parts  of  the  Empire, — the  selfish 
statecraft  of  the  rulers  would  have  deprived  the 
people  for  generations  of  what  the  missionaries 
bring  them. 

As  the  Chinese  come  to  know  the  strangers 
better,  and  to  perceive  the  pure  motives  behind 
their  gentle  invasion,  they  discriminate  more 
sharply  between  them  and  those  aggressive  white 
men  who  are  in  the  Far  East  not  to  help  China, 
but  to  make  something  out  of  her.  The  last  five 
years  have  been  marked  by  a rapidly  growing 
entente  cordiale  between  the  missionaries  and  the 


224 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


better  elements  in  Chinese  society.  The  assail- 
ants of  opium  and  foot-binding  gratefully  own 
their  debt  to  the  strangers.  One  mandarin  went 
circuit-riding  through  his  district  with  the  local 
missionary,  both  speaking  for  opium  reform 
from  the  same  platform.  The  friends  of  the  new 
education  realize  how  much  China  owes  to  the 
mission  schools,  which  have  long  been  turning 
out  men  fitted  to  communicate  Western  learning. 
Lately  one  often  hears  of  high  officials  honoring 
the  commencement  exercises  of  such  schools 
with  their  presence  and  words.  One  provincial 
assembly  attended  a church  conference  in  a 
body,  and  its  vice-president  and  secretary  spoke 
fearlessly  for  their  Christian  faith.  In  the  in- 
terior, where  there  are  no  traders  to  inspire  dis- 
like for  the  white  man,  the  missionary  often  finds 
the  mandarin  not  only  appreciative,  but  even 
sympathetic  and  friendly. 

Very  striking  is  the  contrast  between  the  Eng- 
lish mission  work  and  the  American.  The  Eng- 
lish missionaries  center  their  efforts  largely  on 
translating  and  evangelizing,  while  the  Ameri- 
cans have  done  much  in  the  medical  and  educa- 
tional fields  as  well.  In  the  higher  education 
their  lead  is  almost  a monopoly.  Of  fourteen 
Protestant  mission  “ colleges  ” and  “ universi- 
ties,’ ’ only  one  is  maintained  by  the  British;  the 
rest  are  American  or  union.  The  English  mis- 
sionary at  the  head  of  Shansi  University  de- 
clares: “British  missionaries,  with  British  con- 
servatism, have  held  too  much  to  the  idea  that 


A wealthy  Shansi  family  of  foreignizing  tendencies 


Monks  of  Kushan  Monastery 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


227 


their  office  is  to  evangelize  and  heal,  not  to  en- 
lighten the  mind.  But  the  American  has  also 
applied  himself  directly  to  the  root  of  China’s 
pressing  temporal  need,  and  spent  a hundred 
times  as  much  money — nay,  more — on  education 
as  British  Missions  have  done.” 

This  difference  betrays  a profound  contrast  in 
social  creed.  Most  of  the  British  missionary 
societies,  while  solicitous  for  the  eternal  welfare 
of  the  Chinese,  have  no  thought  whatever  of  rais- 
ing him  intellectually  or  socially.  The  Ameri- 
can societies,  with  their  democratic  faith  in  men, 
aspire  to  help  the  Chinese  upward  along  all  lines. 
One  reason,  perhaps,  for  the  apathy  of  the  Brit- 
ish, is  the  failure  of  university  opportunities  to 
Christianize  the  Hindu  students  in  India,  and 
the  trouble  that  has  been  stirred  up  there  by 
educated  Hindus.  But  one  also  sees  that  the 
British  simply  do  not  believe  in  education  as  the 
Americans  do. 

It  is  certain  that  the  American  missionaries, 
by  their  literary  and  educational  labors,  are  do- 
ing far  more  to  Christianize  Chinese  public  opin- 
ion, laws,  and  institutions,  than  their  equally 
learned  and  devoted  English  brethren.  All 
groups,  however,  recognize  how  hopeless  it  is  to 
convert  the  Chinese  by  missionary  preaching. 
The  West  cannot  send  out  men  enough  to  evan- 
gelize a population  so  vast  over  a land  so  huge. 
Thirty  or  forty  thousand  workers  would  be  needed. 
Then,  too,  the  missionary  rarely  gains  such  mas- 
tery of  the  language  that  all  barriers  between 

IX 


228 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


the  Chinese  mind  and  his  vanish.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  capacity  and  character  of  the  yellow 
race  is  becoming  apparent  to  all.  So  the  mis- 
sionaries realize  that  their  part  is  to  man  the 
needed  colleges  and  theological  schools  and  to 
supervise  the  work  in  the  field,  while  the  actual 
evangelization  of  China  is  to  be  carried  on  by  the 
trained  native,  costing  a sixth  as  much  to  main- 
tain as  the  foreign  missionary. 

It  is  fortunate  that,  as  this  directive  function 
comes  to  the  fore,  a type  is  coming  into  the  field 
quite  unlike  the  early  missionary.  These  young 
men,  most  of  them  “student  volunteers,”  have 
squarer  shoulders,  a harder  grip,  a keener  eye, 
a terser  speech,  and  a greater  zest  for  outdoor 
sports.  They  are  more  careful  to  conserve 
health  and  “fitness.”  They  pass  fewer  hours  at 
their  devotions,  and  keep  more  in  touch  with 
their  time.  They  have  broader  intellectual  in- 
terests, and  through  their  social  and  athletic 
bent  find  points  of  sympathetic  contact  with  the 
treaty-port  people.  In  faith,  self-devotion,  and 
heroism  there  is  nothing  to  choose  between  the 
old  missionary  and  the  new.  Perhaps  the  former 
had  a sublimer  patience,  a deeper  humility.  But 
the  latter  is  better  fitted  to  meet  the  new  mood 
that  is  coming  over  the  Chinese.  He  is  not  con- 
tent with  inspiring  a saving  faith;  he  aims  at 
an  all-round  transformation, — what  he  calls 
“making  the  Kingdom  of  God  come  in  China,” 
— and  he  is  quite  as  likely  to  succeed  as  if  he 
aimed  at  less. 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


229 


What  manly  pith  the  work  requires  may  he 
gleaned  from  the  varied  activities  of  a young 
missionary  in  Fokien  whom  I observed  for  three 
or  four  days  last  year.  A successful  life- 
insurance  agent  who  gave  up  everything  to  obey 
the  “call,”  he  is  now  in  charge  of  three  districts, 
each  with  its  presiding  elder,  a score  of  na- 
tive pastors,  and  perhaps  thirty  congregations. 
He  preaches,  holds  conference,  dedicates 
churches,  examines  candidates  for  the  ministry, 
rebukes,  encourages,  and  directs.  He  passes  the 
long  hours  in  his  sedan  chair  making  observa- 
tions on  bird  life  which  are  gladly  printed  by  the 
Smithsonian  Institution.  When  a man-eating 
tiger  terrifies  the  villagers,  he  takes  a couple  of 
days  off,  slays  the  beast,  and  gives  it,  stuffed,  to 
the  museum  of  his  church  college.  Although 
ignorant  of  architecture,  he  has  to  supervise  the 
construction  of  a big  stone  church  to  seat  twenty- 
five  hundred,  ordering  the  tearing  out  of  badly 
laid  sections  of  wall  and  devising  means  of  sup- 
porting a roof  of  forty-five  feet  span.  With  the 
money  he  secures  from  his  friends  he  runs  a 
school  with  five  teachers  that  supports  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  boys.  The  spacious  compound, 
with  its  thirty  thousand  dollars’  worth  of  build- 
ings and  its  nine-foot  wall,  is  a bit  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  projected  into  the  thirteenth. 
When  a bullet  is  fired  at  midnight  into  a teach- 
er’s room,  he  has  to  confer  with  the  anxious 
mandarins  and  assure  them  that  he  will  not  com- 
plain to  his  consul  if  they  will  see  that  the 


230 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


outrage  is  not  repeated.  Thus  this  cheery, 
masterful  American  goes  about,  speaking  the 
dialect,  judging,  conferring,  deciding,  organizing, 
a real  field-marshal  of  militant  Christianity. 

The  old  taunt  of  “rice-Christian”  still  raises 
doubts  as  to  the  quality  of  the  mission  harvest. 
A Confucian  gentleman  will  tell  you  that  the 
genuine  convert  is  greatly  improved  in  charac- 
ter, but  that  most  of  the  adherents  are  self-seek- 
ers, who  impose  on  the  missionaries.  The  lay 
critic  points  out  that  for  his  knowledge  of  the 
character  and  standing  of  the  applicant  the  mis- 
sionary depends  on  his  native  evangelist,  who 
may  have  his  own  ax  to  grind.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  a fact  that  the  converts  receive  no 
material  aid,  but  are  expected  to  contribute  un- 
til their  church  has  become  self-supporting.  In 
the  distributing  of  famine  relief  no  discrimi- 
nation is  made  between  believer  and  unbeliever. 
Still,  there  are  worldly  motives  for  turning 
Christian,  and  the  seasoned  missionaries  make 
the  inquirer  wait  long  before  baptizing  him. 
They  are  all  eager  to  see  tokens  of  sincerity,  and 
one  whose  most  respected  members  had  just  laid 
bare  their  gross  sins  during  a revival  confessed 
that  a load  had  been  lifted  from  his  heart.  Per- 
haps the  best  proof  that  the  missionaries  are 
not  garnering  hypocrites  is  the  fact  that  ten  thou- 
sand Protestant  and  thirty  thousand  Roman 
Catholic  converts  perished  in  the  Boxer  upris- 
ing. Many  of  these  could  have  saved  their  lives 


A distinguished  pastor  whose  face  reveals 
the  high  possibilities  of  his  race 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


233 


by  trampling  on  a piece  of  paper  bearing  the 
character  for  “Jesus.” 

It  would  be  a gross  error  to  assume  that  the 
missionary  is  intent  solely  on  imparting  a saving 
faith.  With  him  doctrine  figures  by  no  means  so 
prominently  as  with  us  or  as  in  the  earlier  mis- 
sionary work.  He  aims  to  effect  a profound  and 
far-reaching  transformation  in  the  life  of  the 
convert.  This  implies  a startling  change  in 
fundamental  values.  Practical  in  his  religion, 
as  in  everything  else,  the  ordinary  Chinese  re- 
gards his  “joss”  as  a source  of  worldly  benefit. 
From  it  he  seeks  restoration  to  health,  good 
crops,  success  in  the  literary  examinations,  pros- 
perity in  business,  or  official  preferment.  He 
is  amazed  at  the  offer  of  a religion  that  will  prom- 
ise none  of  these  things  unless  they  are  “best” 
for  him,  that  guarantees  in  answer  to  prayer 
only  spiritual  blessings,  such  as  patience,  cour- 
age, and  victory  over  temptation.  A mockery  it 
seems  at  first,  and  a paradox.  But  he  notices 
that  the  Christians  are  serene  of  brow,  and  their 
meekness  under  persecution  argues  a hidden 
source  of  strength ; and  presently  it  occurs  to  him, 
“What  if  this  inner  life  should  be,  after  all,  the 
main  thing?” 

With  Christianity  comes  also  a marked  change 
in  ideals.  Undeveloped  though  they  are,  the 
Chinese,  as  a race,  are  not  one  whit  behind  us  in 
capacity  for  idealism.  St.  Augustine,  no  doubt, 
found  our  heathen  forefathers  far  less  promis- 


234 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


mg  material.  They  are  moved  by  charity,  pu- 
rity, and  forgiveness,  just  as  we  are.  The  read- 
ing of  the  Gospels  stirs  in  them  the  same  secret 
better  self  that  it  stirs  in  us.  There  are  many 
to  whom  the  Christ  ideal  appeals  as  a new  and 
better  life,  and  they  embrace  it  for  the  sake  of 
inward  peace  rather  than  because  of  the  super- 
natural authority  of  Christianity. 

One  who  really  enters  into  the  spirit  of  the  New 
Testament  seems  to  experience  a wonderful  up- 
lift and  happiness.  It  delivers  him  in  a great 
degree  from  the  fears  that  have  haunted  him — 
the  fear  of  misfortune,  the  fear  of  disease,  and, 
above  all,  the  fear  of  death.  Oriental  life  and 
thought  offer  but  a cheerless  outlook  to  the 
meditative  soul,  and  to  such  a one  the  religion 
from  the  West  offers  a true  vita  nuova.  To 
judge  from  the  beatific  expression  on  the  faces 
of  certain  superior  converts  I have  met,  the  Gos- 
pel means  to  them  what  the  opening  of  the  hatches 
of  a captured  slave-ship  meant  to  the  wretches 
pent  up  in  its  hold. 

Besides,  the  missionaries  open  more  windows 
than  one  would  think.  The  wards  and  sleeping 
rooms  of  the  Asile  de  la  Sainte  Enfance  at  Hong 
Kong  are  kept  wonderfully  clean  and  neat.  One 
old  native  woman  recently  admitted  and  lying  at 
the  point  of  death  was  being  instructed  by  a 
Chinese  pastor  in  Christian  doctrine  and  was 
told  of  Heaven  where  everything  is  beautiful  and 
she  would  be  happy.  “Why,”  she  remonstrated, 
“should  I want  to  go  to  Heaven?  Can  it  be 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


235 


finer  than  this?  I am  perfectly  happy  in  this 
beautiful  place  and  don’t  want  to  die  and  dwell 
in  Heaven.”  Poor  soul,  after  a lifetime  of  strug- 
gle with  dirt  and  confusion  her  martyrized  wom- 
an’s instinct  for  order  and  cleanliness  had  at  last 
found  satisfaction! 

The  break  of  the  genuine  convert  with  his  past 
is  far  more  abrupt  than  anything  with  which  we 
are  familiar.  He  turns  his  back  on  opium, 
gambling,  and  unchastity,  the  besetting  sins  of 
his  fellows.  He  abandons  cheating,  lying,  back- 
biting, quarreling,  and  filthy  language,  which  are 
all  too  rife  among  the  undisciplined  common  peo- 
ple. He  shuns  litigation,  often  the  ruin  of  the 
villager.  By  withdrawing  from  the  festivals  in 
the  ancestral  hall  and  from  the  rites  at  the 
graves  of  his  ancestors,  he  sunders  himself  from 
his  clan  and  incurs  persecution.  Thus  the  con- 
verts become  separatists,  with  the  merits  and 
defects  of  separatists.  Cut  off  from  the  world 
and  thrown  on  one  another,  they  form  a group 
apart,  a body  of  Puritans  that  will  one  day  be 
a precious  nucleus  of  moral  regeneration  for 
China. 

The  over-sanguine  dream  of  a great  ingather- 
ing in  case  Christianity,  from  being  merely 
tolerated,  should  become  one  of  the  recognized 
religions  of  the  empire,  or  even  the  official  re- 
ligion. No  doubt  recognition  would  encourage 
many  a promising  youth  to  declare  himself,  who 
even  now  believes,  but  dreads  handicap  in  his 
official  career.  The  wiser  missionaries,  how- 


236 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


ever,  realize  that  adversity  and  persecution 
are  a bracing  atmosphere  for  the  infant  church, 
and  spare  it  an  influx  of  the  worldly-minded,  with 
whose  Oriental  wiliness  and  subtlety  the  mission- 
aries are  not  fitted  to  cope. 

This  feeling  is  deepened  by  the  fact  that  every 
strong  popular  drift  toward  Christianity  that  has 
set  in  in  this  or  that  district  or  province  has  been 
prompted  by  worldly  motives.  Again  and  again 
tidings  have  come  of  wonderful  “mass  move- 
ments’ ’ toward  the  church,  which  have  raised 
high  hopes  of  a sudden  and  wholesale  conversion 
of  the  Chinese.  But  always  it  came  out  at  last 
that  the  movement  had  been  inspired  by  the  hope 
of  gaining  missionary  support  in  lawsuits  or 
winning  the  approval  of  the  mandarins  or  en- 
joying consular  protection  in  times  of  trouble. 
In  one  district  of  Kiang-si,  in  1901-02,  a single 
enthusiastic  missionary  gathered  in  twenty  thou- 
sand souls,  and  numerous  self-supporting  con- 
gregations arose.  But  presently  the  proselytes 
went  to  settling  old  scores  with  their  Roman 
Catholic  enemies,  and  the  new  missionary  sent 
out  to  sift  the  wheat  from  the  chaff  found  him- 
self, after  a year  of  church  discipline,  with  only 
a hundred  faithful.  For  a generation  it  will  be 
impossible  to  make  headway  in  the  district  where 
this  bubble  burst.  Such  cases  make  the  experi- 
enced very  apathetic  toward  mass  movements 
and  mushroom  growths,  and  there  is  a deepen- 
ing conviction  that  spiritual  Christianity  ad- 


How  a,  road  wears  down  into  the  loess  Buddhist  monks  on  pilgrimage  to  Wutaishan 

or  the  Five  Sacred  Mountains 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


239 


varices  only  by  winning  individuals,  never  by  at- 
tracting masses. 

The  gentry  and  literati  have  been  wont  to  de- 
spise the  new  religion  from  the  West.  Looking 
upon  us  as  cunning  and  formidable  barbarians, 
they  have  heeded  our  missionaries  about  as  much 
as  the  circle  of  Maecenas  would  have  heeded 
Gaulish  apostles  of  Druidism.  Of  late,  however, 
their  self-complacency  has  been  dealt  some  stag- 
gering blows,  and  they  are  more  willing  to  hear 
what  the  foreigner  has  to  say.  Certain  mission- 
aries report  that  their  listeners  are  from  a more 
intelligent  class  and  that  the  questions  with  which 
the  preacher  is  plied  at  the  close  show  marked 
intellectual  acumen. 

Although  the  missionaries  have  gained  few  con- 
verts from  the  superior  social  classes,  they  have 
attracted  a superior  element  from  the  middle  and 
lower  classes.  The  majority  of  a native  Christian 
congregation  resemble  the  general  population,  but 
a study  of  their  physiognomy  shows  a greater 
frequency  of  noble  or  intellectual  faces.  Among 
a score  of  farmers  in  a little  congregation  gath- 
ered to  dedicate  a country  chapel  in  Fokien,  I 
noticed  four  fine  faces  and  one  peasant  who  might 
have  sat  to  Leonardo  da  Vinci  for  his  St.  John. 
In  view  of  the  human  quality  of  these  Christians, 
I did  not  marvel  on  learning  that  the  chapel,  cost- 
ing two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  had  been  built 
by  twelve  families  out  of  their  own  resources, 
and  that  every  stick  of  timber  in  it  had  been  car- 


240 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


ried  on  their  shoulders  from  the  sea-coast,  a 
league  away. 

Knowing  how  little  the  modern  woman’s  move- 
ment in  the  West  owes  to  churchmen,  one  is  sur- 
prised to  see  how  potent  is  Christianity  for  the 
uplift  of  the  women  of  the  Far  East.  But  in 
China  the  present  need  of  woman  is  not  industrial 
and  social  opportunity  so  much  as  improve- 
ment in  her  lot  as  daughter  and  wife.  Thanks 
to  the  exalted  place  of  the  parent,  the  position 
of  the  mother,  with  reference  to  her  children  or 
her  daughters-in-law,  leaves  little  to  be  desired. 

The  missionaries  have  not  proclaimed  the 
“rights  of  women”  nor  insisted  upon  the  full 
equality  of  the  sexes.  But  the  women  converts 
gain  from  the  reading  of  the  New  Testament 
ideas  of  their  dignity,  and  come  to  feel  that  they 
have  rights  which  ought  to  be  respected.  It 
gives  them  courage  to  become  Bible  women, 
teachers,  and  physicians.  From  the  same  source 
the  man  learns  to  look  upon  his  wife  in  a new 
light  and  to  feel  that  he  owes  her  love  and  re- 
spect. He  substitutes  persuasion  for  coercion, 
and  concedes  her  full  authority  in  certain  mat- 
ters, such  as  the  management  of  the  household 
or  the  direction  of  the  servants.  One  man  told 
how  formerly  he  had  looked  upon  his  wife  as  a 
mere  toy,  but  since  conversion  he  had  come  to 
love  her  and  consult  her,  and,  to  his  surprise,  he 
had  found  that  often  her  judgment  was  sounder 
than  his.  He  blushed  as  he  confessed  that  he 
“loved”  his  wife,  for  the  Chinese  never  talk 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


241 


about  such  feelings.  It  is  a fact  that  Christians 
have  the  name  of  making  good  husbands,  and  are 
preferred  as  sons-in-law  even  by  unbelieving 
parents. 

Because  she  marries  young  and  can  do  little 
for  her  parents  in  their  old  age,  the  daughter  is 
of  slight  account  among  the  common  people. 
Chinese  gentlemen  have  told  me  that  perhaps  a 
tenth  of  the  female  infants  are  made  away  with. 
One  woman  I heard  of  had  drowned  eight.  An- 
other went  raving  mad  every  time  she  saw  her 
husband,  who  had  taken  from  her  her  three  baby 
daughters  and  sold  them.  Now,  into  this  situa- 
tion Christianity  projects  certain  new  and  very 
emphatic  teachings.  The  convert  is  urged  to 
cherish  and  educate  his  daughter  instead  of  treat- 
ing her  as  a burden.  He  is  to  give  her  at  least  a 
primary  education,  so  that  she  may  be  able  to  read 
her  Bible.  When  she  comes  of  marriageable  age, 
she  finds  herself  far  better  off  than  other  girls. 
To  be  sure,  she  is  not  courted  after  the  manner  of 
the  West;  but  she  may  be  permitted  to  look  upon 
her  suitor,  and,  in  any  case,  she  is  fully  informed 
as  to  his  disposition  and  attainments.  She  may 
even  refuse  to  marry  the  chosen  suitor  without  in- 
curring the  crushing  reproach  of  being  “unfilial.” 
Among  the  common  Chinese,  marriage  negotia- 
tions are  conducted  in  a very  practical  spirit, 
money  being  the  chief  consideration ; but  the 
Christian  parents  feel  it  their  duty  to  consider 
first  the  happiness  of  their  daughter. 

The  male  converts  cling  to  the  husband’s  head- 


242 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


ship,  buttressing  their  position  with  Pauline 
texts,  and  are  reluctant  to  admit  that  deaconesses 
can  be  the  full  equals  of  deacons;  but  more  and 
more  the  woman’s  position  in  the  church  reflects 
contemporary  opinion  in  England  and  America 
rather  than  the  dicta  of  St.  Paul. 

In  the  older  church  buildings  of  South  China, 
in  deference  to  Chinese  notions  of  propriety, 
a five-foot  screen  was  set  up,  hiding  the  women’s 
side  from  the  men’s  side,  but  these  screens 
are  coming  down.  Formerly  there  was  much 
objection  in  the  better  families  to  the  attend- 
ance of  unmarried  girls  at  church,  but  now  you 
see  the  maidens  sitting  in  mother’s  pew  with 
their  eyes  modestly  lowered,  and  looking  very 
sweet  with  their  glossy  brown  hair  falling  in  a 
snood  down  the  back.  Ten  years  ago  women 
never  testified  in  religious  meetings;  but  now 
they  speak  and  pray  freely,  and  the  most  winning 
revivalist  in  China  to-day  is  a young  Chinese 
woman. 

Some  scoffers  insist  that  missions  exist  to  turn 
out  converts,  just  as  a factory  exists  to  turn  out 
shoes.  Divide  your  annual  outlay  by  the  number 
of  new  communicants,  and  you  arrive  at  the  av- 
erage cost  of  converting  a Chinaman.  Now,  let 
conversion  be  conceived  as  a mere  reminting 
which  changes,  indeed,  the  image  and  super- 
scription of  the  coin,  but  not  its  metal,  and  there 
is  a sting  in  the  gibe,  “Is  it  worth  while  to  con- 
vert Buddhists  into  Baptists  at  so  many  dollars 
the  head?” 


Temple  in  Canton 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


245 


Now,  the  truth  is,  that,  in  the  very  nature  of 
the  case,  by  far  the  larger  part  of  their  ac- 
complishment can  never  be  claimed  by  the  mis- 
sionaries as  their  own.  They  dig  the  well  and 
toil  at  the  windlass,  but  the  waters  they  raise  do 
not  flow  in  an  open  conduit  to  the  fields  they 
quicken.  Most  of  them  disappear  in  the  ground, 
and  when  they  reappear  to  make  distant  wastes 
bloom,  they  cannot  be  identified.  What  of  the 
young  men  leaving  the  mission  colleges  uncon- 
verted, yet  imbued  with  Christian  ideals?  What 
of  the  bracing  effect  on  the  government  schools 
of  competition  with  the  well-managed  and  effi- 
cient mission  schools?  What  of  the  government 
schools  for  girls,  which  would  never  have  been 
provided  if  the  missionaries  had  not  created  a 
demand  for  female  education  and  shown  how  to 
teach  girls?  What  of  the  native  philanthropies 
which  have  sprung  up  in  emulation  of  the  mis- 
sion care  for  the  blind,  the  insane,  and  the  leper? 
What  of  the  untraceable  influence  of  the  West- 
ern books  of  inspiration  and  learning  which,  but 
for  the  missionary  translators,  would  not  yet  be 
accessible  to  the  Chinese  mind?  Among  Chi- 
nese who  neither  know  nor  care  for  the  “Jesus 
religion,”  the  changes  of  attitude  toward  opium- 
smoking, foot-binding,  concubinage,  slavery, 
“squeeze,”  torture,  and  the  subjection  of  women, 
betray  currents  of  opinion  set  in  motion  largely 
by  the  labors  of  missionaries. 

In  other  words,  the  running  of  so  many  heathen 
into  our  religious  molds  is  not  the  chief  accom- 


246 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


plishment.  Over  and  above  the  proselytes  won 
are  the  beneficent  transformations,  intellectual 
and  moral,  wrought  in  great  numbers  of  people 
who  do  not  affiliate  with  the  church.  Then,  over 
and  above  such  transformations  of  individuals 
are  the  transformations  wrought  in  the  society 
and  government  of  the  Middle  Kingdom — better 
treatment  of  slaves,  of  prisoners,  of  orphans,  of 
wives,  of  commoners.  In  this  the  missionaries 
have  a great  part,  though  no  man  can  say  how 
much.  Finally,  over  and  above  the  transforma- 
tions of  society  are  the  transformations  wrought 
in  the  Chinese  civilization.  Here  again  the  mis- 
sionary has  planted  and  watered,  but  may  not 
gather  the  fruits  into  his  bin. 

The  missionary  thinks  of  himself  as  a bearer 
of  the  Gospel,  not  as  an  apostle  of  Western  moral 
civilization  at  its  present  stage.  He  does  not 
perceive  on  his  nose  the  twentieth-century  spec- 
tacles through  which  he  reads  the  Gospel,  and 
so  determines  what  is  “scriptural.”  “On  what 
ground,”  I asked  a woman  evangelist,  “do  you 
forbid  foot-binding  as  ‘unchristian’?”  “On  the 
ground  that  it  does  violence  to  the  body  God 
gave  us.”  I thought  of  the  choir  invisible  of 
fasters,  flagellants,  and  self-mutilators  acting  in 
supposed  obedience  to  the  command,  “If  thy 
hand  offend  thee,  cut  it  off,”  and  wondered  what 
they  would  say  to  such  a reason. 

The  missionary  is  the  introducer  of  current 
Western  standards.  He  instructs  his  schoolboys 
respecting  bathing,  spitting,  the  use  of  the  hand- 


Aii  Alpine  road  in  western  Shensi  Monastery  on  the  “Little  Orphan  ' isle 

on  the  Yangtse 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


249 


kerchief,  neatness  of  garb,  the  care  of  one’s 
room,  modesty  in  personal  habits.  He  teaches 
the  people  to  clean  house  and  yard,  to  whitewash 
the  walls  of  the  home,  to  scour  the  floors  of  the 
school-room  or  church.  He  enforces  the  duty  of 
being  humane  to  dumb  animals,  of  rearing  de- 
fective children,  of  educating  daughters,  and  con- 
sulting the  wife. 

Unwittingly  he  reads  into  the  Scriptures  every- 
thing that  has  commended  itself  to  the  conscience 
of  Christendom,  and  becomes,  in  spite  of  him- 
self, the  voice  of  his  country  and  his  time.  The 
girls’  schools  in  the  American  missions  reflect 
American  ideas  as  to  woman’s  proper  place. 
The  industrial  schools  inoculate  with  American  be- 
lief in  the  dignity  of  manual  labor  a people  so  dis- 
dainful of  toil  that  everyone  exempt  from  it  ad- 
vertises the  fact  by  wearing  his  finger-nails  long. 
The  notions  of  government  taught  in  the  mis- 
sion colleges  would  have  horrified  those  who 
Christianized  the  Irish  and  the  Saxons.  The 
place  these  same  colleges  give  to  natural  science 
and  scientific  methods  betrays  the  modern  spirit, 
and  would  have  scandalized  St.  Boniface  or  St. 
Francis  Xavier. 

The  stubborn  animosity  of  the  average  treaty- 
port  foreigner  toward  the  missionaries  is  at  first 
unaccountable.  How  can  intelligent  men  consent 
to  circulate  such  brutal  falsehoods,  such  patent 
calumnies?  For  you  will  be  told  that  the  mis- 
sionaries speculate  in  land,  that  they  trade  “on 
the  side,”  that  they  take  it  easy  and  live  better 


250 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


than  they  did  at  home.  As  for  their  work,  you 
learn  that  it  is  a failure,  that  the  converts  are 
frauds,  and  that  the  Christian  Chinese  is  less 
honest  and  reliable  than  the  heathen.  Indeed,  a 
local  trader  without  twenty  words  of  the  lan- 
guage, dependent  on  his  “pidgin”  English  and 
his  comprador , whose  contact  with  the  natives 
is  limited  to  his  servants  and  a few  native  mer- 
chants, will  aver  that  the  missionary,  who  ad- 
dresses the  natives  freely  in  their  own  tongue, 
comes  and  goes  in  their  families,  sees  them  off 
their  guard,  and  counsels  them  in  their  intimate 
personal  problems,  “doesn’t  know  the  Chinese!” 
The  British  resent  the  outspoken  hostility  of 
all  missionaries  to  the  Indian  opium  trade.  Then 
there  is  a belief  in  commercial  circles  that  the 
opportunities  and  stimulus  they  supply  cannot 
but  strengthen  the  Chinese  as  competitors  and 
embarrass  the  white  man  in  his  money-making. 
The  rancor  of  the  critics  springs,  however,  from 
the  deathless  feud  between  the  worldling  and  the 
idealist.  Free  from  home  restraints,  many  a 
merchant,  shipmaster,  or  customs  officer  on  the 
China  coast  lets  himself  go,  and  sinks  into  a life 
which  obliges  the  missionaries  to  shun  and  dis- 
avow him.  The  sensualist,  whose  ruling  pas- 
sions are  high  living,  drinking,  gaming,  and  de- 
bauchery, resents  the  silent  reproach  in  the  pure 
and  domestic  life  of  the  missionaries,  and  strikes 
at  them  with  incredible  venom.  I have  heard 
a libertine,  whose  ideal  vacation  is  an  orgy  in 
the  yoshiwaras  of  Japan,  rail  at  the  missionaries 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


251 


of  the  Lower  Yangtse  for  gathering  with  their 
families  during  the  heated  term  at  a mountain 
resort  like  Ruling  or  Mokanshan;  and  this,  al- 
though breakdown  from  overwork  is  far  more 
frequent  among  them  than  among  any  other 
white  men  in  China. 

An  anti-missionary  British  consul  in  Western 
China  was  speaking  to  me  of  the  trying  climate 
of  Szechuan.  “It ’s  a shame,”  he  said,  “for  a 
government  or  a firm  to  keep  a white  man  here 
for  more  than  three  years.” 

“But  how  about  the  missionaries?”  I asked. 
“I  understand  they  pass  their  lives  here,  retir- 
ing in  summer  no  farther  than  the  hills  five  miles 
away.” 

“Well,”  he  replied  meditatively,  “the  climate 
doesn’t  seem  to  hurt  them.  You  see,  they  ’re  so 
interested  in  their  work.” 

But  there  are  fair  criticisms  to  be  made.  A 
Chinese  Christian,  educated  in  America  and  hold- 
ing a responsible  post,  told  me  that  during  the 
occupation  of  Peking  by  the  Allies,  when  the 
local  Chinese  were  under  a reign  of  terror,  cer- 
tain thrifty  missionaries  acquired  large  amounts 
of  real  estate  for  their  missions  by  forcing  sales. 
They  would  go  to  a householder  and  say,  “We 
find  your  property  is  suitable  for  our  purposes. 
Will  you  give  us  the  title  deed  for  fifty  dollars?” 
The  intimidated  owner  did  not  dare  to  refuse. 
The  money  was  counted  out  to  him,  and  he  was 
notified  to  yield  up  possession  in  five  days.  Thus 
was  acquired  for  a ridiculously  low  price  much 


252 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


of  the  real  estate  in  a certain  spacious  compound. 

At  one  time  the  missionaries  interfered  too 
freely  in  lawsuits  between  a Christian  and  a non- 
Christian.  The  convert  expected  aid  in  such 
cases,  for  he  is  apt  to  conceive  the  church  as  akin 
to  one  of  his  mutual-benefit  associations,  in  which 
all  stand  by  one  another  in  all  circumstances. 
The  Roman  Catholics  have  always  been  strong 
in  protecting  their  members,  and  by  competition 
the  Protestants  were  drawn  into  a like  policy. 
Of  course  in  each  case  the  missionary  supposed 
that  he  was  on  the  side  of  right,  but  often  he  was 
misled  by  ex-parte  stories.  As  there  are  treaties 
guaranteeing  Chinese  converts  against  persecu- 
tion, the  intervention  of  the  missionary,  with 
consuls  and  gunboats  looming  dimly  behind  him, 
sometimes  frightened  the  mandarin  into  an  un- 
fair decision.  Such  errors  not  only  hurt  Chris- 
tianity by  outraging  the  popular  sense  of  justice, 
but  they  attracted  self-seekers  into  the  church. 
When,  after  the  Boxer  year,  the  policy  was 
generally  abandoned  by  the  Protestants,  there 
was  in  some  quarters  a falling  away. 

The  question  of  indemnity  for  mission  property 
destroyed  by  rioters  is  one  to  perplex  a convoca- 
tion of  saints.  On  the  one  hand,  it  would  seem 
that,  but  for  the  dread  of  having  to  pay  indem- 
nity, the  ill-disposed  official  might  withhold  all 
protection  and  let  the  mob  work  its  destructive 
will.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Changsha  riots 
last  year,  the  mission  property  was  attacked 


A cliff  shrine  near  the  northern  frontier  of  Szechuan 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


255 


just  in  order  to  pile  up  indemnities  for  a hated 
government  to  pay.  The  China  Inland  Mission, 
with  its  thousand  missionaries,  steadily  refuses 
to  claim  indemnity,  on  the  ground  that  the  money 
is  extracted  not  from  guilty  rioters,  but  from  the 
innocent.  Such  an  example  of  Christian  for- 
bearance makes  a deep  impression  on  the  Chi- 
nese and  mightily  advances  the  work  of  the  mis- 
sion. The  results  justify  the  policy,  and  no 
doubt  the  other  missions,  in  order  to  escape  in- 
vidious comparisons,  will  have  to  adopt  it. 

Few  of  those  in  the  field  look  for  an  early  con- 
version of  the  Chinese.  Those  who  have  learned 
how  tough  and  massive  is  the  race  mind  expect 
that  centuries  will  elapse  before  the  yellow  race 
will  be  as  permeated  by  Christianity  as  the  white 
race  already  is.  They  remember  that  “it  took 
Buddhism  three  hundred  years  before  it  obtained 
official  recognition  and  many  centuries  more  be- 
fore the  mass  of  the  people  were  influenced  by 
it.” 

Nevertheless,  none  despond  at  the  outlook,  for 
they  perceive  that  the  aggressive  rivalry  of  Chris- 
tianity, coupled  with  the  coming  diffusion  of  ed- 
ucation among  the  masses,  is  bound  to  raise  con- 
tinually the  religious  plane  of  the  Chinese  by 
forcing  the  native  faiths  to  assume  higher  and 
higher  forms  in  order  to  survive.  A silent,  secret 
permeation  of  the  religions  of  the  Far  East 
by  the  ideals  and  standards  of  Christianity  is 
inevitable;  and  if  eventually  they  prove  capable 


256 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


of  making  a stand  against  the  invader,  it  will  be 
owing  to  their  heavy  borrowings  from  it. 

Chinese  Buddhism  appears  to  be  too  far  gone 
to  be  resuscitated.  Debased  with  popular  super- 
stitions and  loaded  down  with  idol-worship,  even 
the  missionaries  sent  to  China  by  the  Japanese 
Buddhists  will  fail  to  breathe  into  it  the  breath 
of  life.  Quite  otherwise  is  it  with  Confucianism. 
It  is  a natural  rallying-point  for  the  patriots  and 
conservatives  too  proud  to  accept  a foreign  re- 
ligion, and  there  is  every  prospect  that  for  genera- 
tions it  will  be  a center  of  resistance.  Already 
the  scholars  are  reading  into  the  classics  ele- 
vated moral  ideas  they  have  unconsciously  im- 
bibed from  Christian  literature.  Already  there 
is  a movement  that  calls  itself  “ Confucio-Chris- 
tianity”! 

The  doubtful  attitude  of  the  early  mission- 
aries toward  Confucius  has  given  way  to  a cordial 
appreciation  of  his  ideals.  Confucius  offers  a 
faultless  example  of  a life  dominated  by  prin- 
ciple; Jesus  offers  a faultless  example  of  a life 
dominated  by  love.  For  the  people  at  large  the 
Gospels  contain  far  more  ethical  inspiration  than 
the  Analects;  but  for  magistrates,  judges,  and 
public  men,  who  serve  their  fellows  by  conform- 
ing to  principle,  the  Confucian  literature  is  full 
of  uplift. 

The  handicap  of  Confucianism,  in  vying  with 
Christianity  as  a moral  force,  is  its  lack  of  sanc- 
tion. It  presents  high  ideals,  but  there  is  noth- 
ing to  be  dreaded  by  one  who  fails  to  live  up  to 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


257 


them.  Hardly  can  it  block  natural  inclinations 
and  wrest  lives  from  the  grasp  of  appetite  or  pas- 
sion unless  it  develops  the  doctrine  of  responsi- 
bility to  God.  Such  a development  would  hardly 
be  difficult,  for  Confucius  frequently  speaks  of 
“Heaven”  as  on  the  side  of  righteousness. 
Again,  Confucianism,  in  competing  with  a re- 
ligion holding  out  the  assurance  of  immortality, 
suffers  from  its  silence  as  to  the  beyond.  When 
the  master  was  questioned  on  this,  he  replied 
evasively,  “If  you  do  not  understand  life,  how 
can  you  understand  death?”  Very  likely  the 
doctrine  of  an  after  life  will  somehow  be  inter- 
preted into  the  classics.  A Neo-Confucianism 
may  thus  be  able  to  vie  with  Christianity  for  a 
long  time;  for,  as  a home-grown  product,  it  will 
appeal  strongly  to  the  conservative  instincts, 
mortified  by  the  wholesale  borrowings  from  West- 
ern culture  that  must  presently  be  made. 

China’s  remoteness  from  our  own  historical 
epoch  gives  wings  to  the  imagination,  and  the 
traveler  realizes  that  very  likely  the  mission- 
aries there  face  much  the  same  situation  that 
confronted  the  infant  Church  in  the  Roman 
Empire — in  both  cases,  temples,  gods,  images, 
altars,  priests,  sacrifices,  superstition,  an  out- 
worn mythology,  ancestor-worship,  and  moral 
ideals  attracting  only  the  elite.  The  Roman 
Empire  was  superior  to  China  in  civic  virtue, 
but  China  is  superior  in  domestic  virtue.  The 
plane  of  culture  does  not  appear  to  be  very  dif- 


258 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


ferent.  The  subjects  of  Shien  Tung  are  hardly 
more  enlightened  than  were  those  of  Hadrian. 
Since  Christianity  made  its  way  through  the  Ro- 
man Empire  in  spite  of  its  being  spread  at  first 
chiefly  by  small  tradesmen,  artisans,  and  freed- 
men,  why  should  it  not  make  its  way  through  the 
Chinese  Empire? 

For  when  the  Chinese  become  sensible  of  the 
inferiority  of  their  own  culture,  Christianity 
presents  itself  to  them  clothed  with  prestige.  It 
is  communicated  by  picked,  trained  men,  equal 
in  character  and  learning  to  any  body  of  apostles 
that  ever  carried  a faith  to  an  alien  people.  It 
has  the  prestige  of  impressive  antiquity  and  of  an 
immense  following.  Moreover,  it  is  in  close  as- 
sociation with  a material  civilization  so  suc- 
cessful that  China  will  be  obliged  to  adopt  it  in 
its  entirety  in  order  to  survive. 

There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  there  is  any- 
thing in  the  psychology  or  history  or  circum- 
stances of  the  Chinese  to  cut  them  off  from  the 
general  movement  of  world  thought.  Their  des- 
tiny is  that  of  the  white  race;  that  is,  to  share 
in  and  contribute  to  the  progress  of  a planetary 
culture.  It  therefore  seems  safe  to  predict  that, 
in  the  end,  whatever  happens  to  Christianity  in 
the  West  will  happen  to  it  in  China.  If,  owing  to 
the  discoveries  of  natural  science  or  the  results 
of  the  higher  criticism  of  the  Scriptures,  the  phil- 
osophical or  historical  basis  of  Christianity  is 
shattered  and  it  loses  ground  in  the  West, 
it  will  not  move  forward  in  China.  The  in- 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  CHINA 


259 


fluential  and  enlightened  classes  in  China  are 
quite  too  proud  to  allow  their  people  to  adopt 
anything  cast  off  by  the  West.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  Christianity  keeps  its  grip  on  the  West,  it 
is  certain  to  move  forward  to  ultimate  triumph 
in  China;  for  it  is  quite  as  congenial  to  the  Chi- 
nese as  it  was  to  the  people  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire in  the  third  century. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST 


JOURNEY  with  Mr.  Arnold,  American  Con- 


sul at  Amoy,  from  Taiyuanfu,  the  capital  of 
Shansi,  southwest  twelve  hundred  miles  to  Cheng- 
tu,  the  capital  of  Szechuan,  in  the  early  summer 
of  1910  enabled  the  writer  to  view  a section  of 
China  that  has  been  very  rarely  traversed  and 
described  by  white  men.  The  voyage  down  the 
Min  and  the  Yangtse  from  Chengtu  to  Chung- 
king and  thence  to  Ichang,  the  head  of  steam  navi- 
gation, takes  one  through  the  famous  gorges  and 
rapids  of  the  Yangtse,  but  the  route  has  been  so 
often  and  so  well  described  that  I will  ignore  that 
portion  of  my  journey. 

For  nearly  three  centuries  the  Tartar  con- 
querors of  China  have  let  the  splendid  roads 
and  canals  inherited  from  the  Ming  dynasty  go 
to  pieces.  Hence  the  arterial  highway  that  binds 
Peking  to  the  remote  interior  provinces  is, 
through  Shansi,  mostly  a low  way.  You  are 
startled  by  seeing  a man’s  head  and  shoulders 
gliding  mysteriously  through  the  wheat;  draw 
nigh,  and  lo,  a peasant  riding  on  a cart  in  a 
sunken  road!  Often  you  find  yourself  traveling 
some  yards  below  the  level  of  the  fields  so  that 
you  see  nothing  of  the  country.  After  rains  such 


260 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  261 


a road  becomes  a canal,  sometimes  a torrent. 
Of  labor  spent  upon  it  there  is  no  sign.  When 
the  Empress  Dowager  fled  this  way  in  1900, 
stretches  were  repaired  for  Her  Majesty  which 
had  not  been  touched  since  1780!  The  ruts  are 
never  filled,  save  by  nature.  The  road  wanders 
whither  it  will  and  when  one  track  becomes  im- 
passable another  is  found.  As  the  loess  is  ground 
into  dust  under  hoof  and  wheel  and  blows  away, 
the  road  sinks  deeper  and  deeper  until  you  pass 
under  old  gate-towers  whose  foundations  begin 
seven  feet  above  your  head. 

For  three  weeks  we  were  passing  square,  flat- 
top  towers  three  miles  apart  along  which  by 
means  of  signal  fires  news  of  distant  invasion  or 
rebellion  used  to  be  flashed  to  the  Son  of  Heaven. 
Now  the  telegraph  line  marches  over  the  hills, 
and  lusty  saplings  are  rending  the  masonry  of 
the  abandoned  towers.  The  highway  is,  also,  an 
open  air  “hall  of  fame,”  being  lined  with  monu- 
ments erected  to  bygone  worthies  by  a grateful 
community.  Every  mile  of  his  journey  the  way- 
farer who  can  read  is  reminded  of  the  virtues 
his  countrymen  honor.  No  people  has  relied  so 
little  on  police  and  soldiers  to  keep  the  peace  as 
the  Chinese  and  these  inscriptions  show  how  they 
have  schooled  themselves  in  morality. 

From  the  Peking-Hankow  line  a French  rail- 
road climbs  west  half  a day  to  Taiyuanfu. 
Thence  south  for  two  hundred  miles  one  meets 
the  produce  of  the  country  seeking  this  rail 
outlet  to  Peking  and  Tientsin — innumerable 


262 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


mule  carts  laden  with  flour,  salt,  tobacco,  bean 
oil,  hempen  rope,  paper,  locust  wood,  licorice 
root,  goat’s  hair,  hides,  and  bales  of  cotton 
and  wool.  Moreover,  Shansi  is  fat  with  min- 
erals which  may  make  it  a center  of  indus- 
trial energy  after  glowing  Westphalia  and  Bel- 
gium and  Pennsylvania  have  become  a cinder. 
Once,  looking  down  five  hundred  feet  from  the 
road,  I counted  in  the  side  of  a ravine  seven 
veins  of  clear  coal  separated  by  limestone  strata. 
Here  and  there  one  comes  on  workings  where  the 
natives  burrow  timidly  into  hillsides  and  bring 
out  the  coal  on  all  fours.  Near  the  pit  good 
lump  coal  sells  for  seventy-five  cents  a ton, 
whereas  a hundred  miles  away  the  same  coal 
sells  for  seven  times  as  much,  showing  a trans- 
port cost  of  four-and-a-half  cents  a ton-mile.  A 
railroad  down  the  valley  of  the  Fen  would  cut  this 
to  one-tenth  and  put  an  end  to  twenty-five  cent 
wheat  and  flour  half  a cent  a pound. 

Throbbing  with  new  life,  Taiyuanfu  boasts 
electricity,  macadam,  a uniformed  street-clean- 
ing brigade,  a public  park  with  lagoon,  bandstand 
and  museum,  a nursery  growing  trees  for  streets 
and  open  spaces,  a match  factory,  a military 
school,  a police  force,  a reformatory  and  a semi- 
weekly newspaper.  But  a couple  of  days  south 
all  traces  of  foreign  influence  vanish.  Aside 
from  the  huge  cigarette  posters  plastered  clear 
through  the  province  by  some  advertising  van- 
dal, you  are  in  the  pure  Middle  Ages.  The  only 
illuminant  is  a twist  of  cotton  burning  in  an  iron 


Looking  south  from  the  Bell  Tower.  Sianfu 


The  east  gate  of  Taiyuanfu,  showing  macadamized  street 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  265 


cup  of  rape-seed  oil.  The  windows  are  of  thin 
paper  pasted  on  lattice.  Coined  silver  does  not 
circulate  but  one  carries  rough  lumps  which  the 
dealer  accepts  according  to  the  verdict  of  his 
own  scales.  On  converting  them  into  coin  you 
visit  all  the  money-changers  and  deal  with  the  one 
with  the  most  liberal  scales.  The  money  of  the 
country  is  perforated  brass  cash  on  strings,  two 
hundred  to  the  string.  Ten  strings  are  worth  a 
dollar,  and  weigh  from  fifteen  to  twenty  pounds. 
Once  when,  according  to  our  contract,  we  paid 
each  of  our  coolies  the  equivalent  of  forty-three 
cents,  they  were  so  loaded  with  what  is  beyond 
all  question  “filthy  lucre”  that  next  day  they 
could  hardly  carry  us. 

In  cities  like  Taiku  and  Pingyao,  as  well  as  in 
the  capital,  one  sees  signs  of  the  profits  reaped  by 
the  Shansi  bankers  who  do  the  principal  part  of 
the  banking  of  the  Empire.  Fine  residences  with 
numerous  courts,  elaborate  gateways,  parks,  lily 
ponds,  stone  bridges,  summer  houses  and  an- 
cestral halls,  which  together  with  stables,  garden 
and  orchard  occupy  twenty  or  thirty  acres  and  are 
enclosed  by  high  walls  crowned  by  an  ornamental 
cornice,  battlements  and  turrets,  testify  to  former 
prosperity.  Until  recently  poverty  was  increas- 
ing owing  to  opium-smoking  and  laziness,  and,  in 
towns  once  rich,  good  houses  were  being  torn  down 
for  the  sake  of  the  bricks.  But  smoking  is  going 
out,  and  the  tide  is  turning.  Gambling,  however, 
is  said  to  be  extending  to  the  business  class,  and 
the  sons  of  successful  Shansi  bankers,  giving 


266 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


themselves  up  to  self-indulgence,  theatricals  and 
poetry,  let  slip  from  them  the  businesses  their 
fathers  built  up  throughout  the  Empire.  Some 
of  these  rich  young  men  struck  me  as  fat,  soft 
and  sensual.  There  is  little  to  stimulate  their 
ambition,  and  they  see  no  reason  why  they  should 
not  give  themselves  up  to  the  nearest  pleasures. 
Zest  for  sports,  or  the  ideal  of  bodily  “fitness,’ ’ 
has  not  yet  taken  hold  of  them. 

From  the  countryside  at  home  this  Shansi  land- 
scape seems  almost  as  remote  as  a Bedouin  en- 
campment. There  is  never  a pasture,  meadow, 
hay-stack,  barn  or  wind-mill.  There  are  no 
painted  houses,  door-yards,  barn-yards  or  grazing 
cattle.  Instead  of  hedges  or  fences,  open  fields 
with  here  and  there  a square  village  girt  with  mud 
walls.  Instead  of  cemeteries,  clusters  of  graves, 
stone  slabs,  and  brick  monuments  in  the  ancestral 
fields.  For  shingled  frame  houses,  dwellings  of 
sun-dried  brick  under  tile  or  thatch,  the  larger 
enclosing  a courtyard.  For  white  church  and  red 
schoolhouse,  temple,  pagoda,  and  pailow.  For 
finger-post,  crumbling  signal-towers  and  arched 
gateways. 

Of  things  outlandish  and  interesting  there  is  no 
end.  This  is  a camel  country,  but,  as  mules  can- 
not abide  a camel,  the  caravans  lie  up  at  camel 
inns  through  the  day  and  travel  only  at  night. 
We  meet  shaven,  red-robed  Buddhist  monks  on 
pilgrimage  to  the  sacred  mount  of  Wutaishan. 
They  are  from  Szechuan,  and  have  been  two 
months  on  their  way.  All  about  Wensi  looms  are 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  267 


clacking  in  the  cottages,  and  the  town  is  gay  with 
long  strips  of  coarse  cotton  cloth,  dyed  the  char- 
acteristic blue  of  work-a-day  China,  drying  from 
ropes  stretched  across  the  street.  At  Paisiang  a 
sudden  beauty  blooms  in  the  people  and  for  four 
days  we  are  frequently  charmed  with  faces  of  a 
Greek  refinement.  At  Hwachow  in  Shensi  it  ab- 
ruptly comes  to  an  end  and  there  is  nothing  but 
unmitigated  Mongol  till  we  enter  the  streets  of 
Sianfu. 

Rural  police  there  is  none,  and  so  in  the  even- 
ing the  irrigator  carries  home  with  him  rope, 
bucket  and  windlass.  For  the  same  reason  the 
tiny  shelters  of  the  crop  watchers  dot  the  land. 
Rows  of  stalks  of  kaoliang  or  corn  are  leaned  to- 
gether and  daubed  with  mud.  This  makes  a 
shelter  like  an  A tent  in  which  at  night  the  crop 
guard  squats  and  from  which  he  watches  his  patch 
as  harvest  nears.  All  this  is  a heavy  tax  on  the 
time  and  sleep  of  the  peasants. 

The  valley  of  the  lower  Fen  is  one  vast  expanse 
of  yellowing  wheat  and  harvest  is  beginning.  The 
gardens  have  been  given  their  final  drink,  the 
threshing  floors  smoothed  and  beaten,  the  sickles 
ground,  and  the  schools  closed.  At  break  of  day 
the  family  sets  forth  from  the  village,  the  babies 
piled  on  the  wheelbarrow  or  cart  along  with  ket- 
tles and  pots,  the  women  riding  to  spare  their 
squeezed  feet,  the  boys  striding  alongside  per- 
fectly naked  and  the  father  guiding  with  his  whip 
the  dun  bullock  or  gray  donkey  that  draws  the 
outfit.  You  see  them  at  work  under  their  flap- 


268 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


ping  straw  hats,  reaping  with  sickle  or  cradle, 
and  taking  as  long  to  bind  one  sheaf  as  I need  to 
bind  five.  They  indulge  in  a long  siesta  through 
the  midday  heat  and  in  the  cool  of  the  evening 
ride  home  on  sheaves  piled  onto  the  cart  with 
forks  from  locust  branches  that  have  been  trained 
to  grow  three,  tines  from  one  point.  Poor 
widows  and  naked  orphans  glean  about  in  the 
stubble  and  follow  the  homing  cart  to  gather  the 
heads  of  wheat  shaken  from  the  load. 

It  is  harvesting  as  simple  and  idyllic  as  that 
of  classical  antiquity,  and  would  have  the  charm 
of  the  old  Greek  life  if  only  the  maidens  were  as 
free  as  those  of  Homer’s  time.  But  by  “pro- 
priety ’ ’ the  marriageable  girls  are  excluded  from 
this  cheerful  harvest-home  and  must  stifle  in  the 
tiny  close  chambers  of  their  low  houses  while  the 
youths  sing  amid  the  sheaves. 

The  wheat  is  strewed  about  the  threshing  floor 
and  near  midday  when  it  has  grown  brittle  in  the 
sunshine  they  beat  it  with  flails  or  make  a donkey 
draw  a stone  roller  round  and  round  over  it. 
Then  the  straw  is  lifted  aside,  the  mingled  grain 
and  chaff  swept  into  a heap  and  the  picturesque 
winnowing  begins.  Always  the  wheat  has  the 
right  of  way.  People  flail  out  their  sheaves  on 
the  road  because  it  saves  making  a threshing  floor 
and  I have  seen  half  the  width  of  a sixteen-foot 
main  street  in  a great  city  occupied  by  some- 
body’s drying  wheat.  The  traffic  squeezed  by 
and  nobody  protested  against  the  encroachment. 

Nowhere  is  the  havoc  wrought  by  deforesta- 


An  ancient  ornamental  gate  over  the  One  of  the  ancient  brick  signal-towers 

Southwestern  Highroad  occurring  every  three  miles  on  the  South- 

western Highroad  uniting  Peking  with 
the  remote  provinces 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  271 


tion  more  evident  than  in  Northwest  China. 
Around  Taiyuanfu  all  the  once-wooded  moun- 
tains are  bare  and  hone  dry.  Down  through  the 
province  one  sees  no  trees  on  mountain  or  foot- 
hill save  those  about  temples.  The  original  hard 
woods  are  all  gone,  so  in  the  valley  one  grows 
cheap  soft  woods, — poplar,  cottonwood,  basswood, 
box-elder  and  willow. 

Once  the  tree  cover  is  removed,  the  rains  wash 
the  soil  from  the  hillsides  and  with  it  fill  the  water- 
courses and  choke  the  valleys.  Wherever  a 
brook  or  a creek  debouches  into  the  valley  of  the 
Fen  it  has  built  with  this  wash  a great  alluvial 
cone,  curving  down-river,  and  along  the  crest  of 
this  cone  runs  the  shallow  gravelly  bed  of  the 
stream  that  once  loitered  under  high  banks  three 
or  four  fathoms  beneath  its  present  level.  This 
cone  has  covered  under  silt  and  sand  and  gravel 
from  a few  score  acres  to  several  square  miles  of 
the  former  rich  bottom  lands  and  they  can  never 
be  recovered. 

Buildings  are  imbedded  to  the  waist  in  the 
debris.  Gateways  that  once  one  could  ride  a 
camel  through  one  can  now  only  creep  through 
on  hands  and  knees.  Twice  we  came  upon  ma- 
jestic stone  bridges  which  once  spanned  broad 
affluents  of  the  Fen,  but  which  now,  their  noble 
arches  half  silted  up,  stand  unused  amid  fields 
of  beans  and  rape,  sad  monuments  of  a bygone 
prosperity.  Since  the  bridge  was  built  twenty  feet 
of  wash  from  deforested  hills  has  been  dropped 
in  that  watercourse  and  the  stream  no  longer 


272 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


fed  from  spongy  wooded  slopes  is  a trickle  or  an 
underground  moisture  in  summer  and  a raging 
flood  in  the  rainy  season. 

With  the  woods  vanishes  much  that  makes  life 
worth  living.  The  brooks  no  longer  run  clear 
water  filtered  through  moss  and  humus  but  are 
turbid  with  the  soil  of  the  bared  slopes.  Fish 
will  not  live  in  them,  and  bathing  ceases  to  be  a 
joy.  In  twelve  days  of  Shansi  travel  I never  saw 
a boy  disporting  himself  in  water.  The  springs 
dry  up  and  no  late- summer  pastures  are  fresh- 
ened by  the  seepage  from  wooded  hillsides.  Dis- 
mally the  muddy  streams  wander  in  the  sun  over 
wide  shallows  instead  of  lurking  as  of  yore  in 
deep  channels  under  shading  banks.  No  fallen 
tree  or  log  jam  checks  the  creek  and  offers  an  Au- 
gust lurking  pool  for  the  trout.  No  leafy  path  or 
mossy  log  invites  lovers,  though,  to  be  sure, 
China  does  not  believe  in  lovers.  Millions  live 
life  through  without  knowing  sylvan  glades, 
‘‘green-robed  senators  of  the  mighty  woods,” 
the  glories  of  October  leaves  or  the  boyhood 
pleasures  of  nutting,  bird-nesting,  and  squirrel- 
hunting. 

Roots,  twigs,  grass,  straw  and  dung  replace  fire- 
wood. Brick  or  mud  is  the  sole  building  material. 
Brick  benches  and  tables  replace  wooden  furni- 
ture ; brick  stoops,  wooden  porches ; and  the  high- 
way stretches  glaring  hot  and  dusty  to  where  the 
lone  locust  by  the  tea  house  offers  a patch  of 
shade.  Thus,  with  the  woods  vanish  most  of  the 
sources  of  beauty,  the  founts  of  poetry  and  in- 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  273 


spiration  dry  up,  and  life  sinks  to  a dull  sordid 
round  of  food-getting  and  begetting. 

The  most  penetrative  Western  things  in  China 
are  the  Gospel,  kerosene,  and  cigarettes,  and  I 
am  glad  that  as  between  light,  heat  and  smoke, 
the  prophets  of  light  get  into  the  country  first. 
These  interior  folk  gather  their  first  impres- 
sions of  our  race  from  those  who  want  to  make 
converts  rather  than  those  who  want  to  make 
money.  They  take  all  foreigners  for  mission- 
aries and  often  were  we  greeted  with  “ Ping  an,” 
“ Ping  an”  (Peace  be  unto  you),  the  salutation 
with  which  they  are  in  the  habit  of  greeting  mem- 
bers of  the  mission.  The  inland  missionaries 
freqently  garb  themselves  a la  Chinoise  in  order 
to  get  closer  to  the  people.  They  do  not  feel  it 
to  be  a hardship,  however,  for,  in  comparison 
with  the  practical  Chinese  costume,  the  cut  of 
Western  dress  is  about  as  foolish  as  anything 
you  find  in  China.  Some  go  so  far  as  to  grow 
a queue,  and  when  you  meet  a Scotchman  with  a 
bright  auburn  pig-tail  down  his  back  you  have 
seen  something  memorable. 

Missionary  life  here  is  no  junket.  I met  one 
young  man  of  noble  face  whose  sweetheart  had 
died  of  typhus  a month  before  on  the  very  day 
set  for  their  wedding.  Neither  this  shock  nor  a 
year’s  suffering  from  sprue,  which  one  gets  by 
“living  Chinese”  and  sitting  at  the  table  of  one’s 
humble  converts,  had  taken  from  his  countenance 
its  serene,  uplifted  look. 

Cut  off  from  kindred,  society,  music,  art, 

J3 


274 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


amusement  and  intellectual  companionship,  the 
missionary  makes  of  his  house  a little  reteat  full 
of  reminders  and  suggestions  of  the  motherland. 
The  missionary  home  is  a green  oasis  in  a Sahara 
of  dirt  and  ugliness.  Surrounded  by  so  much  that 
is  distressing  these  exiles  have  to  live  much  in  the 
spirit.  If  they  devour  endless  devotional  litera- 
ture and  sing  many  hymns  and  hang  fortifying 
texts  on  their  walls,  it  is  not  at  all  from  unwhole- 
some excess  of  piety  but  to  find  solace  from  the 
depressing  spectacle  of  a fine  people  doomed  to 
a dreary  existence  which  cannot  be  much  relieved 
in  our  time. 

Once  we  met  a wayfarer  with  a singularly  noble 
countenance,  who  put  his  bundle  down  and  made 
us  a profound  salutation.  The  Consul  conversed 
with  him  and  after  he  had  passed  I asked,  “Who 
is  that  man?  He  is  one  of  the  finest-looking 
Chinese  I have  ever  seen.”  It  came  out  that  he 
was  the  pastor  of  a native  church.  I have  not 
the  language  to  describe  what  happiness  and  en- 
couragement these  souls  of  higher  aspiration 
among  the  Chinese  gain  from  their  fellowship 
with  the  kindred  spirits  from  the  West. 

While  some  complain  that  the  missionaries  live 
too  well,  I have  heard  the  China-Inland  mission- 
aries blamed  for  undertaking  to  live  on  too  lit- 
tle— in  some  cases  not  more  than  a hundred  dol- 
lars a year.  In  the  field,  however,  you  realize 
that  the  mission  well  knows  what  it  is  doing.  In 
Hwachow,  Shansi,  you  can  get  nine  eggs  for  a cent, 
a pigeon  for  a cent,  a fowl  for  five  cents,  a brace 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  275 


of  pheasants  for  three  cents,  mutton  without 
bone  for  three  or  four  cents  a pound.  For  a cost 
of  sixty  cents  a week  apiece,  the  ladies  of  the 
mission  can  set  their  table  with  the  best  the 
market  affords. 

These  ladies,  by  the  way,  are  English  and  kins- 
women of  a gallant  British  general.  They  con- 
duct a self-supporting  school  with  more  than  a 
hundred  girls  and  live  by  themselves  with  not  a 
white  man  within  a day’s  journey.  One  of  these 
sisters  is  a survivor  of  the  Boxer  year.  Then 
she  saw  her  pupils  ravished  and  murdered  and 
her  school  given  to  the  flames.  For  weeks  she 
was  taken  about  in  chains,  lodged  in  the  vilest 
dungeons  and,  time  and  again,  the  knife  of  a 
Boxer  was  at  her  throat.  Yet  she  is  hack  in  her 
work  at  the  old  station,  quite  unconscious  of  her 
heroism. 

After  a fortnight  of  mule  litter  we  sight  an- 
cient yellow  Sianfu,  “the  Western  capital,”  with 
its  third  of  a million  souls.  Within  the  fortified 
triple  gate  the  facial  mold  abruptly  changes  and 
the  refined  intellectual  type  appears.  Here  and 
there  faces  of  a Hellenic  purity  of  feature  are 
seen  and  beautiful  children  are  not  uncommon. 
These  Chinese  cities  make  one  realize  how  the 
cream  of  the  population  gathers  in  the  urban 
centers.  Everywhere  town  opportunities  have 
been  a magnet  for  the  elite  of  the  open  country. 

Cinctured  with  twelve  miles  of  lofty  wall  dating 
from  the  fourteenth  century  and  in  perfect  re- 
pair, Sianfu,  more  than  any  other  city,  recalls 


276 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


the  early  history  of  the  “black-haired  people” 
from  the  West  who  from  this  Wei  valley  carried 
their  torch  of  civilization  to  the  rude  peoples  of 
what  is  now  China.  Here  indeed  is  the  cradle 
of  the  Empire.  Ages  before  Peking  was  or 
Canton,  Sianfu  was  the  central  hearth  of  Chi- 
nese culture.  No  other  city  has  been  the  capital 
for  so  long.  Off  and  on  it  held  the  scepter  for 
twenty-three  centuries.  From  the  battlements 
you  see  out  across  the  plain  huge  tumuli  shelter- 
ing the  dust  of  monarchs  who  reigned  before  King 
Solomon.  One  commemorates  the  father  of  the 
execrated  emperor  who,  not  long  after  Alexander 
the  Great,  sought  to  break  the  sway  of  the  past 
by  burning  the  ancient  books  and  slaying  the 
literati. 

There  is  in  China  no  museum  of  antiquities  to 
match  the  Pei-lin  or  Forest  of  Tablets,  a collec- 
tion of  more  than  fourteen  hundred  historical 
records  in  stone  running  back  twelve  centuries. 
The  pride  of  the  collection  is  the  famous  Nes- 
torian  Stone  inscribed  in  781,  which  gives  a long 
account  of  the  Nestorian  Christianity  which,  after 
flourishing  for  two  centuries,  was  stamped  out 
by  persecution  a thousand  years  ago.  How 
odd  that  the  Cross  was  carried  to  China  before 
it  reached  the  Great  Britain  whose  sons  are  now 
carrying  it  to  the  Chinese  again ! 

The  Mohammedans  have  many  mosques  here 
and  from  time  to  time  of  late  the  new  self-con- 
scious aggressive  Islam  sends  out  some  zealot 
from  Constantinople  to  warm  them  in  the  faith. 


The  type  of  public,  monument 
universal  in  Shansi 


Grave-stones,  Chihli 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  279 


Local  Buddhism  just  now  is  under  a cloud  owing 
to  a story  that  has  the  tang  of  the  European 
Dark  Ages.  Not  long  ago  a wicked  monk  in  a 
Buddhist  monastery  here  became  obnoxious  to 
his  fellows  and  in  solemn  conclave,  the  abbot  ap- 
proving, they  decided  he  was  not  fit  to  live.  So 
they  stuffed  him  alive  into  their  furnace.  The 
missionaries  report  that  many  from  the  intel- 
lectual class  now  listen  to  the  preaching  in  the 
central  hall  and  after  his  sermon  the  preacher 
is  well  heckled  with  shrewd  questions.  “Do  send 
out  strong  men!”  was  the  parting  word  of  a 
leading  missionry;  “We  need  all  the  equipment 
we  can  get  to  answer  the  questions  the  thinking 
men  of  China  are  asking.”  Naturally  the  spur 
of  competition  is  putting  new  zeal  into  the  friends 
of  the  old  faith.  The  Confucians  have  banded 
together  and  are  sending  out  wandering  gospel- 
lers of  their  own  to  preach  the  doctrines  of  the 
Sage  at  fairs  and  other  popular  gatherings. 
And  that  is  something  worth  while.  Whatever 
their  proselyting  success  the  missionaries  do  suc- 
ceed in  turning  men’s  thoughts  to  the  things  of 
the  spirit. 

Sianfu  has  a match  factory,  and  the  half-dozen 
shops  carrying  foreign  goods  show  that  the  Chi- 
nese are  buying  patent  medicines,  tooth  brushes, 
cosmetics,  liqueurs,  cigarettes,  condensed  milk, 
underwear,  lamps,  clocks,  spectacles,  penknives, 
and  athletic  goods.  American  kerosene  sells  for 
forty-three  cents  a gallon,  but  at  Yenchuan  in  the 
north  of  the  province,  where  there  is  an  inex- 


280 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


haustible  supply  of  petroleum,  a native  refinery 
is  producing  kerosene  which,  after  two  hundred 
miles  of  cart  carriage,  sells  here  for  thirty-one 
cents. 

When,  in  the  days  of  Cromwell,  the  Manchu 
Tartars  overpowered  China,  they  placed  Tartar 
garrisons  in  the  chief  cities.  These  “ banner- 
men,’  ’ living  a privileged  caste  in  their  own 
fortified  quarter  and  fed  by  government  rice, 
have  vegetated  and  multiplied  for  generations. 
In  Sianfu  the  Tartar  quarter  is  a dismal  picture 
of  crumbling  walls,  decay,  indolence  and  squalor. 
On  the  big  drill  grounds  you  see  the  runways 
along  which  the  horseman  gallops  and  shoots  ar- 
rows at  a target  while  the  Tartar  military  man- 
darins look  on.  These  lazy  bannermen  were 
tried  in  the  new  army  but  proved  flabby  and 
good-for-nothing;  they  would  break  down  on  an 
ordinary  twenty-mile  march.  Battening  on  their 
hereditary  pensions  they  have  given  themselves 
up  to  sloth  and  vice,  and  their  poor  chest  de- 
velopment, small  weak  muscles,  and  diminishing 
families  foreshadow  the  early  dying  out  of  the 
stock.  Where  is  there  a better  illustration  of 
the  truth  that  parasitism  leads  to  degeneration! 

The  hope  is  in  the  new  national  army,  and  this 
is  one  of  its  important  recruiting  centers,  for  the 
Mohammedans  of  this  province  and  Kansuh, 
sprung  in  part  from  West  Asian  warriors,  are 
far  more  spirited  and  pugnacious  than  the  pure 
Chinese.  There  is  a military  preparatory  school 
here  with  two  hundred  students,  and  buildings 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  281 


are  arising  for  what  is  to  be  one  of  the  four 
chief  military  schools  of  the  Empire.  In  all  the 
public  schools  there  is  daily  military  drill. 

Feeling  the  closing  jaws  of  the  vise,  i.  e.,  the 
Powers,  Chinese  patriots  are  making  the  army 
the  national  pet  in  order  to  raise  the  despised 
calling  of  the  soldier.  Patriotic  societies  as- 
semble the  people  and  appeal  to  scholars  and 
other  better  elements  to  enlist.  The  students  are 
stirring  up  an  agitation  for  the  establishment  of 
a volunteer  army.  In  some  parts  of  the  Empire, 
especially  in  the  provinces  near  to  Peking,  good 
men  are  sought  for  the  ranks,  they  are  promptly 
paid,  and  they  are  taught  to  make  themselves 
trig  and  neat.  The  men  are  proud  of  the  uni- 
form and  the  public  is  being  taught  to  respect 
it.  When  traveling,  soldiers  are  no  longer 
herded  in  open  trucks,  but  ride  third-class.  The 
military  ranks  have  been  raised  above  the  cor- 
responding civil  ranks.  The  officers  are  prod- 
ucts of  military  schools  not,  as  formerly,  prize 
essayists.  Princes  of  the  Blood  hold  high  com- 
mands and  constantly  wear  their  uniforms.  The 
infant  Emperor  has  conferred  upon  the  army  the 
supreme  distinction  of  announcing  himself  as  its 
commander-in-chief. 

Nevertheless,  each  province  does  pretty  much 
as  it  pleases,  uniforms  and  equipments  are  not 
yet  standardized,  and  at  least  fifteen  distinct 
types  of  rifles  are  in  use.  Often  the  central 
military  authorities  show  an  astonishing  lack  of 
snap  and  efficiency.  For  example,  they  allow 


282 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


the  testing  of  a foreign  machine  to  train  the  men 
to  accurate  shooting  to  be  interrupted  for  the 
hundred  days  of  mourning  after  the  late  Em- 
peror’s death  and  again  for  five  weeks  at  the 
Chinese  New  Year.  The  following  incident  re- 
veals the  old  listlessness  in  quarters  where  the 
professional  spirit  ought  to  be  at  its  keenest. 
An  American  captain  happened  to  show  certain 
Chinese  officers  at  Peking  a Browning  revolver 
which  so  pleased  them  that  they  inquired  how 
they  could  obtain  such  a weapon.  He  volun- 
teered to  get  them  and  presently  orders  for  two 
hundred  were  taken,  mostly  among  officers  of  the 
Imperial  Guard.  Since  a government  permit 
(hu-chao)  is  necessary  if  you  want  to  bring  arms 
into  Cathay,  the  captain  suggested  to  the  officers 
that  of  course  they  would  procure  the  indispensa- 
ble hu-chao.  They  said,  “Oh,  you  get  it,”  and 
as  he  would  not  beseech  the  Chinese  Government 
for  permission  to  import  arms  for  its  own  de- 
fenders, the  revolvers  never  came. 

All  the  four  days  to  Fengsiangfu  the  road  was 
lined  with  reapers  returning  home  to  Kansuh. 
At  dawn  they  would  be  lying  thick  by  the  road- 
side asleep,  and  a little  later  they  would  be  crowd- 
ing the  eating  stalls  where  our  chair  coolies  rest 
and  smoke  after  three  miles  of  carry.  Here  a 
cent  buys  a big  bowl  of  noodle  soup  or  wheat 
porridge  with  a large  steamed  roll  and  a sugared 
doughnut,  so  the  strings  of  hard-earned  cash 
tied  about  their  waist  suffered  little.  Each 
carried  pipe  and  tobacco  pouch  and  on 


Cedars  on  the  main  road  across  Northern  Patriarch  on  the  highway.  Willows  line 

Szechuan.  Each  tree  is  protected  by  a the  road  most  of  the  way  from  Tungkwan 

tablet  warning  against  depredation  to  Rianfu 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  285 


his  back  a light  frame  holding  his  raw  felt 
coat,  sleeping  mat,  cooking  pot,  sickle,  and  per- 
haps some  town  wares  to  peddle  among  his 
shepherd  neighbors.  While  the  harvest  is  on, 
hundreds  of  these  cutters  are  to  be  seen  at  day- 
break in  the  village  streets  waiting  to  be  hired. 
When  the  cutting  is  over  they  work  their  way 
four  or  five  hundred  miles  back  home  in  time  to 
reap  the  late  crops  of  cool  Kansuh. 

Such  verdant,  uncouth,  staring,  gaping,  ill- 
smelling, garlicky  hinds  might  have  been  seen  in 
Europe  as  late  as  the  Crusades,  hut  hardly  since 
then.  It  was  such  unlettered  boors,  no  doubt, 
who,  in  the  later  Roman  Empire,  by  clinging  to 
the  old  religion  long  after  the  cities  had  accepted 
the  new,  made  the  word  for  villager,  pagan,  and 
for  heath  dweller,  heathen,  synonymous  with 
“non-Christian.”  What  irony  that  to-day  the 
polished  Confucian  gentleman  of  the  cities  is 
called  a “heathen”! 

Thanks  to  rebellion  and  famine  Shensi  is  now 
roomy  and  its  people  do  not  have  to  work  very 
hard.  There  is  little  murder  of  girl  babies, 
though,  to  be  sure,  opium  pellets  come  in  very 
handy  for  such  purpose.  Shensi  folk  migrate 
little,  live  much  to  themselves,  and  are  rude,  con- 
servative and  provincial.  I heard  of  a peasant 
woman  refusing  a thousand  cash  rather  than 
bother  to  boil  a pot  of  water  for  a traveler’s  tea 
— which  is  as  if  one  of  our  farmers’  wives  should 
refuse  a five-dollar  bill  for  such  service. 

At  Fengsiangfu  we  bade  good-bye  to  the  road 


286 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


which  leads  on  to  Turkestan,  to  Cashgar  and,  if 
you  like,  to  “silken  Samarcand.”  It  is  a cart 
road  to  Lanchowfu  where  the  Yellow  Eiver  is 
so  swift  that  a ferryboat  rowing  hard  to  get 
across  is  swept  ten  miles  down  stream  ere  it 
touches  the  other  bank.  Recently  the  governor 
there  had  an  American  engineer  built  a truss 
bridge  across  the  river,  and  when  it  was  opened 
the  canny  Mongol  carters — who  know  about  stone 
bridges  but  not  about  steel — halted  their  loads 
on  the  approach  and  went  on  ahead  to  inspect  the 
structure  and  see  whether  it  really  would  stand 
up  under  a cart ! 

Chinese  townspeople  do  not  always  cut  loose 
from  agriculture.  In  this  city  trade  has  been 
dead  for  three  weeks  because  so  many  of  the 
townsmen  have  been  away  harvesting  their  wheat. 
The  city  has  a progressive  prefect  from  Szechuan, 
the  Massachusetts  of  West  China,  who  has  es- 
tablished a school  for  silk  culture,  introduced  the 
mulberry,  and  hopes  that  silk-raising  will  take 
the  place  of  the  doomed  poppy. 

From  here  we  leave  wheel  track  and  strike 
south  in  sedan  chairs  to  struggle  for  twelve  days 
with  the  mountains  that  give  the  province  a name 
which  means  “the  western  passes.”  The  scen- 
ery was  once  Tyrolean,  hut  Nature  has  been 
tamed  by  man  and  forced  to  yield  him  the  ut- 
most of  subsistence.  Woods,  brake,  grass,  pas- 
ture, wild  shubbery — nearly  everything  in  the 
nature  of  wilderness — vanished  centuries  ago. 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  287 


Utility  reigns  supreme;  and  all  it  comes  to  is  to 
feed  a dirty,  sordid,  opium-sodden  people  living 
in  hovels,  wearing  coarse,  faded  blue  garments, 
crippling  their  women  by  foot-binding,  and  let- 
ting their  boys  and  girls  run  about  filthy  and 
naked!  No  music,  art,  books,  poetry,  worship, 
refined  association,  allure  of  children,  charm  of 
women  or  glory  of  young  manhood  in  its 
strength.  No  discussions,  no  politics,  no  heed  to 
events  in  the  great  world.  Life  on  a low  plane, 
the  prey  of  petty  cares  and  mean  anxieties. 
Infinite  diligence,  great  cleverness  and  ingenuity, 
abundance  of  foresight  and  thrift,  few  destruc- 
tive passions;  still,  a life  that  is  dreary  and  de- 
pressing to  look  upon.  And  the  thing  that  hath 
been  will  be  unless  new  stimuli  and  higher  ideals 
come  in  from  without.  These  people  pay  a 
heavy  price  for  having  crushed  woman  down  into 
a mere  breeder  of  children.  Of  the  charm,  the 
surprise,  the  refinement  woman  can  impart  to 
life  if  only  she  is  granted  freedom  and  opportu- 
nity, they  have  no  inkling. 

Family  meals  there  are  none;  armed  with 
a pair  of  chopsticks  each  stows  his  food  when  he 
feels  like  it.  The  windows  are  few,  small  and  ob- 
structed with  lattice  or  oiled  paper  so  that,  thanks 
to  the  doctrine  that  “the  home  is  woman’s 
sphere,”  she  passes  her  days  in  the  semi-dark- 
ness of  a cave.  Almost  never  does  one  meet  a 
woman  traveling.  The  females  of  the  common 
people  are  rarely  out  of  sight  of  home.  But  as 


288 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


officials  have  to  take  their  families  about  from 
post  to  post,  we  pass  perhaps  three  women  a day 
always  in  curtained  sedan  chairs. 

The  Celestials  let  their  girlhood  bloom  un- 
noticed in  a cellar  and  cannot  divine  the  charm 
we  Americans  find  in  these  graceful  budding 
creatures  with  their  innocent  and  precious  af- 
firmance of  the  worth  of  life.  I first  realized 
what  the  East  misses  by  my  delight  when,  on 
my  return,  I saw  girls  and  young  women  at  the 
stations  along  the  Canadian  Pacific  Bailway  con- 
ducting themselves  like  natural,  uncowed  human 
beings.  Their  freedom  had  the  witchery  of  a 
guarded  park  where  the  fawns  face  you  fearlessly 
in  the  open  and  the  timid  quail  run  about  un- 
afraid. 

As  we  go  south  signs  of  superstition  multiply. 
Just  inside  the  town  gate  stands  often  a dingy 
little  god-house  with  a horrid  idol  clutching  a 
human  head  or  eye-ball  in  his  hand.  There  are 
many  wayside  shrines  containing  little  figures 
of  an  old  king  and  his  consort,  seated  and  benign, 
genii  loci  no  doubt.  Before  some  jutting  stone 
by  the  path  under  the  cliff  the  incense  curls  all 
day  long  and  the  passing  packman  pauses  long 
enough  to  buy  a few  sticks  which  the  priest,  with 
profound  kotows  to  the  smoky  stone  stuck  up 
with  cock  feathers,  will  burn  under  the  nose  of 
the  imaginary  joss.  We  met  a procession  of 
mourners  chanting  a weird  dirge  and  on  the  cof- 
fin they  bore  on  their  shoulders  crouched  a cock 
to  be  sacrificed  at  the  grave.  Along  the  Kialing 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  289 


one  finds  facing  each  turn  in  the  river  a square 
stone  pillar  bearing  a man’s  bust.  The  Romans 
called  such  termini.  Now,  why  should  the  carven 
head  on  these  Szechuan  termini  have  short  curling 
hair  and  a Roman  cast  of  features ? On  this 
same  river  we  pass  a great  rock  face  known  as  the 
Cliff  of  the  Thousand  Gods.  Buddhist  piety  has 
pitted  it  with  many  hundreds  of  niches  each  hold- 
ing the  image  of  some  god  or  saint,  life  size  or 
greater. 

Where  the  road  crosses  a high  divide  a wall 
pierced  by  a gateway  spans  the  pass  and  the 
traveler  catches  his  first  sight  of  the  canon  beyond 
as  a lovely  picture  framed  in  an  arch.  Temples 
crown  such  places  and  I have  seen  the  roadway 
for  a furlong  literally  lined  with  inscribed  stone 
tablets  presented  by  worshipers  who  wished  to 
commemorate  their  visit  to  the  holy  place.  A 
silk-peddler  from  far  Chefoo  was  with  us  when 
we  passed  and  for  good  luck  he  had  the  priests 
light  joss-sticks  for  him  in  front  of  the  god.  He 
was  most  perfunctory  and  no  thought  of  prayer 
as  communion  with  the  deity  had  ever  entered 
his  mind.  His  idea  was ; you  do  something  nice, 
such  as  burn  incense,  for  the  god  and  he,  seeing 
he  is  a gentleman,  will  do  something  nice  for  you. 

Nevertheless,  the  priests  do  protect  the  trees. 
On  the  deforested  mountains  you  can  tell  a tem- 
ple fifteen  miles  away  by  the  clump  of  trees 
about  it,  which  stand  out  on  the  sharp  sky  line 
with  great  distinctness.  Sometimes  many  acres 
of  ancient  woods  are  in  the  sacred  grove  and  once 


290 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


for  two  days  our  way  was  dominated  by  a high 
pine-clad  peak  with  a protecting  monastery 
perched  on  top. 

Daring  and  costly  as  was  this  “Road  of  the 
Golden  Ox”  it  is,  like  everything  else  in  this  land, 
neglected.  Often  we  came  on  a piece  of  road 
that  had  dropped  away  or  been  buried  by  an 
earth-slip  or  undermined  by  the  river ; but  repair 
work  there  is  none.  In  forty  days  of  travel  we 
beheld  never  a stroke  of  road-mending.  The 
laden  coolies  painfully  pick  their  way  around  the 
break  and  traffic  flows  on.  We  saw  fine  stone 
bridges  building,  for  you  can  carve  your  name 
on  a bridge  and,  besides,  a grateful  community 
may  raise  a tablet  in  your  honor.  Indeed,  if 
prefect  or  philanthropist  Tsu  builds  an  entire 
highway,  it  will  be  known  as  the  “Tsu  road”  and 
he  will  be  happy.  But  what  glory  is  there  for 
any  one  in  keeping  up  the  existing  highways? 
So  old  main  roads  and  bridges  are  suffered  to 
drop  to  pieces  at  the  very  moment  new  lesser 
ones  are  being  built.  What  China  needs  is  a 
highway  superintendent  in  each  prefecture  who 
will  organize  a permanent  road-mending  force. 
Let  him  be  an  expert,  making  roads  his  life  work 
and  joy,  not  an  ambitious  official  on  his  way  up 
the  ladder  of  promotion  with  his  eye  fixed  on  the 
rungs  above  him. 

Frequently  for  a furlong  on  each  side  of  the 
village  the  paving  of  the  road  is  missing.  I dis- 
covered at  last  that  the  villagers  had  simply  dug 
up  the  paving  stones  and  used  them  to  build 


Ferrying  across  the  Yellow  River  Houses  with  brick  stoops  and  benches, 

showing  resort  to  mud  and  brick  in  a 
timbeiiess  country 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  293 


their  pig  pens  or  garden  walls.  Thanks  to  these 
depredations,  each  year  a hundred  thousand  car- 
riers go  slipping  and  laboring  miserably  through 
these  stretches  of  muck.  Yet  nothing  is  done ; the 
private  interest  is  sacred  and  must  be  given 
the  right  of  way  no  matter  what  the  damage  to 
the  general  public.  For  in  Chinese  eyes  the 
private  right  is  something  distinct  and  clear-cut 
which  each  understands  and  sympathizes  with, 
while  the  public  right  is  not  vizualized  at  all  or, 
in  any  case,  commands  no  sympathy.  If  my 
next-door  neighbor  has  a dramatic  troupe  per- 
form in  front  of  his  house  making  the  night 
clamorous  with  gongs  and  songs,  I do  not  pro- 
test. It  is  all  his  affair.  The  whole  neighbor- 
hood tolerates  the  murder  of  its  sleep  because 
each  imagines  that  sometime,  perhaps,  he  will 
want  to  have  a festivity  in  front  of  his  house! 

Throughout  our  journey  the  attitude  of  the 
people  left  nothing  to  be  desired.  Once  only  did 
we  hear  the  epithet  “foreign  devil”  and  that 
was  the  innocent  prattle  of  an  urchin.  We 
found  mission  ladies  who  had  heard  it  but  once 
in  seven  years.  These  ladies  occupy  stations  by 
themselves,  go  chairing  about  the  country  alone, 
and  are  never  molested  or  even  insulted.  They 
feel  perfectly  safe  with  any  chairmen  they  pick 
up.  The  other  side  is  the  spectacle  of  evil- 
doers slowing  dying  in  the  open  street  in  the  ter- 
rible “standing  frame”  where,  with  his  arms 
pinioned,  a criminal  hangs  by  his  head  in  a frame 
that  just  lets  his  toes  reach  the  ground.  It  is 


294 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


blood-curdling  when  you  meet  a party  carrying 
a man  with  fettered  ankles  seated  in  a big 
wooden  cage  to  reflect  that  he  may  be  on  his  way 
to  the  headsman’s  sword,  the  standing  frame, 
or  death-by-the-thousand-cuts. 

The  giant  tangle  of  mountains  through  which 
one  emerges  into  the  valley  of  the  Upper  Han,  a 
thousand  miles  by  river  from  Hankow,  i.  e., 
Han-mouth,  seems  to  be  a social  frontier.  North 
of  this  axis  all  the  way  to  Peking  people  live  in 
walled  villages ; south  of  it  they  live  in  scattered 
homesteads.  Apparently  the  easily  defended 
passes  relieved  the  people  to  the  south  from  fear 
of  the  Mongols.  These  people,  moreover,  do 
not  bind  the  feet  of  the  women  so  tightly  nor 
do  they  keep  them  so  secluded.  The  girls  were 
everywhere  helping  thresh  the  wheat  and  a single 
family  would  be  able  to  have  from  five  to  eight 
flails  going  on  the  threshing  floor. 

The  real  line  of  cleavage  between  North  China 
and  South  China  comes  a little  further  on  where 
rice  culture  begins.  For  with  rice  the  water 
buffalo  becomes  the  principal  farm  animal.  But 
if  the  horse  or  mule  cannot  be  used  in  farming, 
one  cannot  afford  to  keep  him  merely  for  trans- 
port. So  there  is  an  end  of  wheeled  vehicles, 
the  narrow,  stone-paved  road  replaces  the  broad 
dirt  road  of  North  China,  the  coolie  becomes  the 
common  carrier,  and  the  highway  is  thickly 
studded  with  refreshment  stalls  for  the  human 
pack  animals.  One  travels  by  chair  and  no 
longer  by  mule  litter.  The  inns  are  for  men 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  295 


rather  than  for  beasts.  Since  the  streets  of  the 
cities  are  continuous  with  the  country  roads  and 
a part  of  the  same  system  of  communication,  they 
become  narrow  in  the  same  degree  as  the  high- 
ways. As  neither  sun  nor  wind  can  get  at  these 
straitened  streets  to  dry  them,  they  become  foul 
and  unsanitary.  Population  is  more  congested 
than  in  the  north.  Mosquitoes  bred  in  the  paddy 
fields  make  life  a torment.  In  the  wheat  belt  the 
contents  of  the  family  cess-pool  are  mixed  with 
dry  earth  and  applied  without  offense.  With  the 
cultivation  of  rice  you  get  the  liquid  manure,  the 
filth  bucket,  and  the  awful  stenches  characteristic 
of  the  South.  So  that  the  oft-noted  contrasts 
between  the  life  of  North  China  and  that  of  South 
China  derive  not  from  a difference  in  the  peo- 
ple, but  from  the  demands  of  the  dominant  crop. 

Wonderful  is  the  high  broken  land  south  of  the 
mountain  masses  that  constitutes  the  great 
sponge  of  China.  Rounding  the  shoulder  of  a 
height,  you  see  mountains  rising  behind  moun- 
tains until  the  distant  purple  ranges  are  lost  in 
perpetual  cloud.  At  intervals  a great  shadow- 
filled  cleft  opens  to  the  south  whence  issues  a 
snow-fed  river  into  an  amphitheater  of  terraced 
foothills  covered  to  the  top  with  rice  fields,  each 
overflowing  into  the  one  next  below.  The  gleam 
near  the  crown  of  a hill  is  the  storage  pool  that 
gives  the  rice  to  drink.  Then  the  river  meanders 
about  a widening  valley  floor  and  finally  for 
half  a hundred  miles  between  the  foothills  you 

glimpse  its  silver  on  its  way  to  the  Yangtse.  One 

14 


296 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


sees  rivers  with  other  rivers  flowing  into  them 
and  smaller  rivers  flowing  into  these,  each  loiter- 
ing through  its  enameled  valley.  The  recesses 
of  a kingdom  lie  open  in  the  afternoon  sunlight. 
One  looks  down,  as  might  the  Heavenly  Eye,  on 
the  habitations  of  countless  beings  and  in  im- 
agination sees  them  hurrying  about  their  petty 
food-winning  tasks  like  so  many  agitated  ants. 

There  are  two  ways  of  traversing  broken 
country.  Follow  the  water  courses,  now  and  then 
climbing  over  a ridge  into  the  next  valley ; or  fol- 
low the  water  partings,  now  and  then  dropping 
down  into  a valley  in  order  to  reach  the  next  ridge. 
Local  roads  follow  the  valley  route  where  the 
people  are  thickest;  but  a government  way  may 
take  the  high  route  that  gives  you  dry  road, 
breeze  and  a magnificent  view  on  either  hand. 
Now,  the  road  that  leads  from  the  foot  of  the 
passes  two  hundred-odd  miles  southwest  to 
Chengtu  mounts  three  thousand  feet  above  the 
Kialing  and  then  keeps  just  as  high  as  it  can. 
Save  where  it  dips  into  a valley  it  is  lined  with 
splendid  old  cedars,  some  not  less  than  seven  feet 
through,  each  protected  by  its  wooden  tablet 
warning  against  vandalism. 

Through  the  mountains  mule  and  man  vie  as 
carriers.  A great  quantity  of  cotton  has  to  be 
transported  from  the  Wei  Basin  two  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  to  the  Han  Valley,  and  for  these  bulky 
bales  the  man  is  better.  We  passed  thousands 
of  coolies  creeping  along  under  their  huge  white 
burdens  like  migrating  ants  under  their  eggs, 


THE  FAE  WEST  OF  THE  FAE  EAST  297 


carrying  from  one  to  two  hundred  pounds  of 
cotton  eight  to  fifteen  miles  a day  and  earning 
therefor  about  seven  cents. 

As  we  descend  into  overpeopled  Szechuan,  the 
pack  mules  vanish  and  the  highway  is  given  up 
to  the  packmen.  One  backs  his  towering  load 
and  carries  a little  iron-shod  T prop  to  put  be- 
hind him  and  rest  his  load  on  when  he  takes 
breath.  Another  swings  his  bales  from  the  ends 
of  a six-foot  bamboo  balanced  across  his  shoulder 
on  a pad.  Every  two  minutes  he  must  shift  pole 
to  the  other  shoulder.  The  early  beginner  grows 
his  own  pad  in  the  shape  of  two  huge  red-blue  cal- 
louses on  either  side  of  the  base  of  the  neck. 

Each  carries  cash,  sweat  rag,  fan,  water  pipe, 
oiled  paper  umbrella  and  a roll  of  matting  to  keep 
his  load  dry.  The  pack  mule  requires  an  at- 
tendant to  guide,  drive,  load,  unload,  feed  and 
collect  pay  for  him.  The  packman  looks  after 
himself  and  in  a fortnight  or  a month,  this  slave 
of  poverty  delivers  his  load  to  the  consignee, 
takes  his  wage  and  departs.  What  can  a poor 
mule  do?  Such  competition  simply  takes  the 
fodder  out  of  his  mouth! 

But  oh,  the  physique  of  these  packmen ! Naked 
to  the  middle,  they  present  a superb  torso,  the 
muscles  of  the  trunk  being  developed  to  perfec- 
tion under  the  carrying  pole.  Never  a hollow 
waist,  never  a protruding  abdomen.  There  is 
not  an  ounce  of  clogging  fat  and  the  play  of  the 
well-defined  muscles  under  the  clear  bronze  skin 
is  beautiful  to  behold.  It  is  a pity  that  the 


298 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


moment  the  Szechuanese  is  exempt  from  phys- 
ical labor,  he  begins  to  degenerate  for  his  ideal 
is  to  become  as  unlike  the  despised  coolie  as  pos- 
sible. If  he  is  a prosperous  merchant  he  is  proud 
of  his  thickening  jowl  and  his  sagging  waist.  If 
he  is  of  the  literati  he  is  proud  of  his  slim  hands 
and  his  lissome  figure. 

In  Szechuan  the  Mongol  strain  weakens  and 
you  come  upon  fine  human  types.  I saw  a strip- 
ling who  might  have  posed  for  Michael  Angelo’s 
David.  Often  the  eye  lights  on  an  oval  face  with 
arching  penciled  eyebrows,  delicate  temples, 
straight  nose,  high-cut  nostrils  and  fine  eyes, 
beautiful  as  Antinous.  The  world  has  been  slow 
to  realize  that  nowhere  is  there  a more  high-bred 
countenance  than  you  can  find  in  China.  Its 
beauty  has  been  veiled  by  the  unbecoming  prac- 
tice of  shaving  the  front  of  the  head,  which 
“brings  out”  the  cranium  too  much  and  suggests 
a precocious  baldness.  When  the  queue  is  gone, 
— and  it  seems  in  the  way  of  going — our  painters 
will  find  a fresh  inspiration  in  the  Endymions 
and  Ganymedes  of  Szechuan. 

But  while  the  stock  is  good,  its  condition  is  not. 
The  wens,  tumors,  swellings,  wastings,  eruptions, 
sores  and  ulcers  that  meet  the  eye  are  fairly 
sickening.  No  doubt  if  we  went  about  stripped 
to  the  waist,  there  would  be  shocking  revela- 
tions. There  would  be  a dreadful  accumulation 
of  blemishes,  too,  if  a generation  of  us  grew  up 
without  doctor  or  surgeon.  Still,  the  marred 
and  rotting  bodies  so  common  in  certain  foul 


Ill  the  valley  of  the  Wei 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  301 


old  towns  suggest  syphilitic  taint  or  univer- 
sal poisoning.  When  the  flesh  of  scavengers  is 
food,  when  walls,  floors,  furniture,  garments,  and 
the  water  in  which  they  are  washed  swarm  with 
microbes,  when  one  cannot  eat  or  drink  or  breathe 
or  stir  or  bathe  without  risk  of  infection,  even 
the  hardy  constitution  of  the  Chinese  succumbs. 
It  is  a mercy  that  the  hot-drink  habit  gives 
the  people  here  at  least  the  benefit  of  boiled 
water. 

In  teeming  Szechuan  the  food  quest  is  dire,  un- 
remitting and  obvious.  The  country  is  weedless, 
tilled  like  a garden,  but  coarse  utility  and  anxious 
calculation  look  out  of  it  everywhere.  No  lawns, 
shade  trees,  flowers  or  shrubbery.  Not  even  an 
orchard,  vineyard,  or  orange-grove ; but  every- 
where rice,  pulse,  cabbages,  corn  and  beans — the 
maximum  of  sustenance!  Passing  a farmhouse 
you  glimpse  dirty  naked  babies,  listless  foot- 
bound  women,  feculent  floors,  sooty  walls,  dark 
rooms,  rooting  pigs,  a mangy  cur,  a festering 
cess-pool,  a couple  of  bushels  of  wheat  drying  on 
a mat,  a woman  or  a donkey  grinding  at  a mill. 
No  newspapers,  no  courting,  no  social  gather- 
ings, no  uplifting  religion,  nothing  that  gives  out- 
look, aspiration,  hope.  In  six  weeks  I saw  but 
one  man  reading,  and  he  had  fallen  asleep  over 
his  book.  The  faces  of  the  boys  of  eight  to 
twelve  years  are  most  appealing;  they  look 
brighter  than  white  children  of  the  same  age.  It 
is  sad  to  reflect  that  in  the  absence  of  good  public 
schools  and  economic  opportunity  they  can  but 


302 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


grow  up  into  the  same  ignorant,  superstitious, 
overworked  men  their  fathers  are. 

After  a week  along  the  sky  line  we  drop  down 
at  last  into  the  world-famous  Chengtu  plain, 
really  an  old  lake  about  seventy  miles  by  thirty 
which  has  been  filled  with  the  silt  gnawed  from  the 
great  Thibetan  mountains  by  the  foamy  Min. 
Two  thousand  years  ago  the  engineer  Li  Ping 
— since  exalted  to  godhead  and  honored  in  many 
temples — caught  and  split  and  tamed  the  Min 
where  it  issues  from  the  gorges,  so  that  its  still- 
cold,  milky  water,  strained  through  a thousand 
interlacing  canals,  flashes  and  rustles  and  gur- 
gles down  this  “Garden  of  the  Flowery  Realm” 
under  apricot  and  pomegranate,  past  copses  of 
mulberry  and  bamboo,  irrigating  crops  that  feed 
three  or  four  thousand  to  the  square  mile.  The 
plain  is  rich  but  most  of  the  people  are  poor,  for 
there  are  at  least  four  millions  of  them,  and  if 
the  soil  were  twice  as  bountiful  there  would  he 
twice  as  many  people  just  as  poor.  Nowhere  on 
the  globe,  I suppose,  is  so  much  food  coaxed  from 
so  little  soil.  One  hears  of  seven  crops  a sea- 
son. You  easily  toss  a stone  across  the  plot  that 
must  feed  a human  being  a year.  In  their  eager- 
ness to  accumulate  fertilizer  the  farmers  have 
lined  the  thronged  highways  with  screened  pits 
which  emit  unspeakable  stenches. 

Most  of  the  crops  the  Min  water  reaches  by 
gravity,  but  to  the  higher  tracts  it  is  lifted  by 
huge  wheels  built  of  bamboo  but  as  spidery  as  a 
Ferris  wheel.  Set  upright  in  a ditch  they  turn 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  303 


slowly  as  the  swift  current  beats  on  the  little 
square  mats  fixed  all  around  the  rim.  Between 
the  mats  bamboo-joint  buckets  as  big  as  your 
forearm  are  fastened  at  such  an  angle  that  they 
fill  while  in  the  water  and  spill  their  contents  side- 
ways into  a long  trough  as  they  come  to  the  top 
of  the  wheel.  By  this  means  these  clever  culti- 
vators have  made  the  current  lift  a part  of  itself 
thirty-five  feet. 

On  account  of  the  many  streams,  one  meets 
with  innumerable  bridges,  many  of  them  of  stone 
and  very  beautiful.  Always  in  the  big  bridges 
a carved  dragon’s  head  projects  upstream  from 
each  pier  and  on  the  down-stream  side  the 
dragon’s  lashing  tail  is  seen.  Where  wheel 
traffic  is  unknown  it  is  possible  to  introduce  the 
elegant  “camel-back”  bridge,  a single  high  stone 
arch  over  which  the  road  is  carried  by  steps. 

At  Chengtu,  capital  of  Szechuan  and  one  of  the 
wealthiest  and  best-built  cities  of  the  Empire, 
Western  influence  is  seen  at  its  best.  When  the 
Viceroy  Chao-Erh-Sen  took  us  to  the  roof  of  the 
military  college  and  pointed  out  the  numerous 
schools  and  public  buildings,  he  showed  a just 
pride  in  what  is,  no  doubt,  the  most  progressive 
of  pure  Chinese  cities.  No  other  can  match  the 
paving,  the  cleansing,  the  policing  of  the  streets 
of  Chengtu.  City  water  and  electric  light  will 
soon  be  in.  Here  two  thousand  miles  from  the 
ocean  and  within  two  hundred  miles  of  Thibet  as 
the  crow  flies,  the  Chinese  are  doing  better  than 
in  the  coast  cities  that  have  had  intercourse  with 


304 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


the  West  for  two  generations.  If  may  be  in  the 
character  of  the  people,  for  after  devastation  the 
province  was  resettled  in  the  seventeenth  century 
by  pushful  immigrants  from  other  provinces.  It 
may  be  the  exemption  of  Szechuan  from  the 
ravages  of  the  Taiping  rebellion.  It  may  be, 
also,  that  these  remote  Chinese,  free  from  the  im- 
pressions left  by  the  forced  opium  trade,  treaty- 
port  contempt,  gun-boat  diplomacy,  and  the  West- 
ern mailed  fist,  are  in  a better  mood  to  appreciate 
the  higher  side  of  the  West — its  ideas  and  ideals. 

I say  “ideals”  advisedly,  for  not  Western 
wares,  nor  Western  methods  and  machinery,  nor 
even  Western  science  and  technology  suffice, 
even  together,  to  meet  the  needs  of  this  people. 
Their  fires  are  banked  and  we  shall  never  know 
what  they  can  do  till  the  dampers  of  their  energy 
are  opened. 

Chinese  children  do  not  run,  romp,  and  climb 
like  ours.  Their  schoolboys  are  less  riotous 
than  white  boys.  Athletic  sports  are  unknown. 
One  recreates  with  kite  flying,  cricket  fighting, 
gambling,  chess,  or  letting  off  fire-crackers.  To 
sip  wine  and  cap  verses  in  a shady  arbor  or  a 
cool  grotto  by  a lotus  pond  is  a gentleman’s  ideal 
of  happiness.  There  is  game  aplenty  in  some 
parts,  but  no  one  shoots  save  the  pot  hunter  with 
his  rusty  matchlock.  No  one  bestrides  a horse 
for  pleasure.  The  placid  mule  is  preferred  to 
the  horse  and  a gentle  amble  to  a brisk  gallop. 
When  the  mounted  soldier  gets  up  speed,  the 
sight  is  a salve  for  sore  eyes.  Boxing  would 


A horseshoe  tomb  in  a South  China  hillside 


Coffins  in  vest-house  waiting  for  the  lucky  day 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  307 


never  occur  to  anyone  as  a sport.  Fighting  is 
rare  and,  far  from  being  a manly  exchange  of 
blows,  is  waged  girlwise,  with  scratching  and 
hair-pulling.  The  singing  of  the  men  is  a nasal 
falsetto  in  strange  contrast  to  the  abdominal 
bellow  of  Western  males. 

Walking  is  demeaning,  and  one  never  goes 
afoot  if  he  has  the  price  of  a sedan  chair.  His 
outlay  is  a sacrifice  to  his  sense  of  dignity  rather 
than  to  his  laziness.  Promoted  to  be  a “boy” 
even  the  hardy  coolie  behaves  as  if  stricken  with 
locomotor  ataxia,  and  will  be  chaired.  To  pay 
a social  call  save  in  a chair  is  gross  discourtesy. 
Foreign  officers  promenading  the  streets  of 
Chengtu  have  been  taken  for  foreign  coolies  be- 
cause they  used  their  legs.  The  well-off  China- 
man lolls  on  his  couch  or  in  his  palanquin  and 
grows  fat,  sleek  and  torpid  if  he  is  a sensualist, 
or  frail  and  translucent  if  he  is  an  ascetic.  The 
scholar  shuns  vigorous  exercise  lest  he  should 
spoil  his  skill  with  the  writing  brush.  Possibly 
he  lets  his  nails  grow  and  when  they  reach  some 
inches  of  length  protects  them  with  a silver  case. 

The  soldier  has  come  from  the  dregs  and  con- 
tempt for  him  has  gone  so  far  as  to  quench  the 
natural  admiration  for  the  martial  virtues.  No 
civilian  carries  weapons,  the  duel  is  unknown, 
and  there  is  little  shame  in  showing  the  white 
feather.  The  mandarins  look  bold  but  often  they 
are  “lath  painted  to  look  like  iron.”  Under 
nocturnal  attack  many  a villager  takes  to  his 
heels  leaving  his  family  to  the  robbers.  The  lat- 


308 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


ter  give  the  foreign  traveler  a wide  berth  hav- 
ing learned  the  fellow  will  actually  fight.  The 
mere  presence  of  the  white  passenger  is  said  to 
brace  the  nerves  of  the  boatmen  in  the  perilous 
rapids  of  the  Yangtse.  It  is  not  considered 
shameful  to  weep,  and  one  often  hears  of  men 
dissolved  in  tears.  Yet  the  Chinese  meet  pain 
and  death  like  Stoics,  and  Gordon  and  Wolseley 
declared  they  make  brave  soldiers  when  well  led. 
“When  well  led,”  aye,  there ’s  the  rub ! For  Chi- 
nese pusillanimity  testifies  not  to  want  of  nat- 
ural grit  but  to  the  fact  that  the  bold  manly 
qualities  have  not  been  stimulated  among  them, 
as  they  have  been  among  us,  by  social  apprecia- 
tion. 

For  ages  Chinese  manhood  has  been  scaled 
by  the  maxims  of  the  Sages.  Spectacled  scholars 
have  been  the  pace-setters  and  their  psychology 
has  been  stamped  deep  on  the  national  character. 
If  the  coolie  sports  fan  and  umbrella,  it  is  not 
from  effeminacy,  but  because  the  common  people 
form  themselves  on  the  model  of  the  literati. 
Pedants  and  book-worms,  myopes  and  recluses 
have  had  to  rule  the  Chinese,  largely  by  moral 
force,  and  as  their  long  suit  is  learning  they 
naturally  cry  down  bodily  prowess.  So  debility 
has  been  supposed  to  be  the  necessary  accompani- 
ment of  intellect.  The  ascendancy  of  the  in- 
tellectuals has  damped  the  virility  of  the  race 
and  lies  like  a wet  blanket  on  its  active  and  com- 
bative impulses.  Hence  the  Chinese  will  not  cut 
their  nails  and  harden  their  muscles  till  they 


THE  FAR  WEST  OF  THE  FAR  EAST  309 


have  new  ideals.  Perhaps  the  Young  Men’s 
Christian  Association  with  its  slogan  so  inspiring 
to  the  young,  “all-round  development — physical, 
intellectual,  moral,  and  religious — for  myself  and 
for  others”  is  the  best  physician  for  the  lethargy 
that  lies  like  an  evil  spell  on  the  energies  of  the 
yellow  race. 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

WHEN  we  came  to  board  the  ferry  plying 
across  the  Yellow  River  at  Tungkwan 
Pass,  the  boatman  slid  out  two  pieces  of  plank 
whipsawed  from  a tree  that  had  frequently 
changed  its  mind.  They  were  so  crooked  they 
would  turn  over  when  you  stepped  on  them.  Of 
course  our  mules  balked  at  the  wretched  gang- 
way, and  half  an  hour  was  wasted  in  forcing  them 
to  leap  into  the  boat.  At  debarkation  more  waste 
of  time  in  making  them  jump  from  boat  to  beach. 
A proper  gangway  with  cleats  on  it  would  have 
saved  all  the  trouble.  Now,  these  ferrymen 
make,  say,  three  thousand  trips  a year  and  at 
least  half  the  time  mules  are  passengers.  Ex- 
perience ought  long  ago  to  have  convinced  them 
that  a mule  will  not  trust  himself  to  their  crazy 
planks.  But  they  ought  to  work;  so  down  to  the 
present  moment,  no  doubt,  these  planks  are  run 
out  every  time  the  ferry  touches  shore. 

It  is  a Chinese  trait  to  go  on  employing  a likely 
means  without  considering  whether,  as  a matter 
of  fact,  they  are  getting  the  coveted  results.  The 
river  junk  has  a big  eye  painted  on  either  side 
of  the  prow  so  that  the  boat  may  “look  see”  its 
way.  They  have  never  inquired  whether  these 

310 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


311 


optical  craft  fare  better  than  others  in  the 
crowded  waterways.  Just  inside  the  gateway  to 
a courtyard  a brick  screen  is  built  in  order  that 
the  viewless  flying  demons  of  the  air  may  collide 
disastrously  with  it  when  they  seek  to  enter  a 
domicile.  To  no  one  has  it  occurred  to  mark 
whether  families  without  such  screens  have  worse 
luck  than  other  families.  In  the  same  uncritical 
mood  our  coolies  would  leave  joss  sticks  burning 
before  the  wayside  shrines  and,  two  thousand 
miles  from  the  sea,  our  boatmen,  before  starting 
on  the  perilous  down-river  trip,  sacrificed  a cock 
at  the  bow  to  bring  good  luck.  The  sentry  on 
the  escort  boat  moored  alongside  us  rolled  his 
drum  and  beat  his  triangle  every  quarter  of  an 
hour  through  the  night  to  soothe  us  with  the  as- 
surance that  he  was  awake  and  vigilant.  The 
actual  result  was  a ruined  night’s  rest  and  the 
request  next  day  that  he  desist  from  such  marks 
of  attention.  The  night  watchman  steadily  claps 
as  he  goes  his  rounds,  the  theory  being  that  his 
din  will  scare  away  the  thieves.  In  all  the 
centuries  no  one  has  pointed  out  that  in  practice 
the  thieves  are  warned  of  the  watchman’s  ap- 
proach and,  once  he  is  by,  work  in  perfect  se- 
curity. 

If  such  be  the  neglect  to  scrutinize  results  in 
simple  matters,  what  guesswork  there  will  be  in 
the  higher  realm  where  effects  are  confused! 
Thus  it  looks  as  if  moral  precept  will  mold  charac- 
ter ; and  so  the  Chinese  endlessly  rehearse  precept 
without  noting  its  utter  want  of  effect.  It  looks 


312 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


as  if  memorizing  the  noble  teachings  of  the  Sages 
will  form  the  incorruptible  official;  and  so  the 
classics  are  made  the  basis  of  training  for  gov- 
ernment service,  with  the  result  that  nowhere 
does  performance  square  less  with  professions 
than  in  China.  It  looks  as  if  elpquent  admoni- 
tions from  the  throne  will  check  corruption;  and 
so  the  hortatory  edicts  continue  to  pour  forth. 
Of  course  they  never  can  reform  the  mandarins, 
because  they  furnish  no  new  incentive  to  right 
doing.  It  looks  as  if  a fierce  aspect  would  in- 
timidate the  enemy;  and  so  there  were  “tiger” 
soldiers;  in  yellow-ochre  hoods,  with  tiger  strip- 
ings  down  the  back  of  the  uniform,  and  with  shields 
painted  to  represent  the  tiger’s  open  jaws!  In 
like  vein  when,  in  1842,  the  British  troops  marched 
on  the  Woosung  forts,  the  Chinese  general  had  a 
lot  of  conical  mud  heaps  whitewashed  so  as  to 
look  at  a distance  like  white  tents,  and  thus  sug- 
gest the  presence  of  a larger  garrison.  These 
bright  ideas,  alas,  somehow,  never  worked.  It 
looks  as  if  parents  will  make  better  matches  than 
the  young  people,  so  they  have  given  parents 
full  control  of  matrimony;  with  the  result  that 
there  are  now  in  China  more  foot-bound  wives, 
crippled  from  girlhood  to  please  the  perverted 
taste  of  fathers-in-law  than  there  are  men  and 
women  in  the  United  States ! 

In  a word,  the  Chinese  have  never  accepted 
the  principle  of  efficiency,  which  is,  that  the 
methods  or  means  to  be  chosen  for  a given  pur- 
pose should  not  be  those  which  seem,  appropriate , 


Outlook  tower  of  the  Temple  of  the  Flowing  Waters 
in  Southern  Shensi.  Founded  about  200  B.  C. 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


315 


but  those  which  actually  do  produce  most  surely, 
promptly,  and  economically  the  coveted  results. 
They  fail  to  discriminate  real  from  apparent 
fitness,  because  they  have  never  made  the 
efficiency  of  agents  and  processes  an  object  of 
inquiry. 

Not  that  there  is  anything  queer  in  the  work- 
ing of  the  Oriental  brain.  Not  in  the  least. 
Their  popular  thought  is  unripe,  that  is  all.  The 
bulk  of  the  Chinese  match  up  well  with  our  fore- 
fathers between  the  fourteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries.  For  in  the  Middle  Ages  white  men 
were  just  as  haphazard,  casual  and  uncritical  as 
are  the  yellow  men  to-day.  They  looked  for 
‘‘signs  and  wonders  in  the  heavens”  and  trembled 
at  comets.  They  held  that  blood-root,  on  account 
of  its  red  juice,  must  be  a blood  purifier;  liver- 
wort, having  a liver-shaped  leaf,  will  cure  liver 
disease ; eyebright,  being  marked  with  a spot  like 
an  eye,  is  good  for  eye  troubles ; and  so  on.  They 
fasted,  exorcised  demons,  burned  witches,  trusted 
talismans,  paraded  sacred  images,  wore  relics  of 
the  saints,  sought  the  king’s  touch  to  cure  scrofula, 
marched  in  religious  processions  to  bring  change 
of  weather  and  hung  consecrated  bells  in  steeples 
to  ward  off  lightning.  It  was  the  rise  of  the 
natural  sciences  that  cleared  the  fog  from  the 
European  brain.  In  the  building  of  astronomy, 
physics,  chemistry  and  physiology  were  wrought 
out  certain  methods — observation,  measurement, 
trial  and  error,  experiment — which  were  as  help- 
ful for  practical  life  as  for  science.  For  a method 


316 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


that  connects  cause  and  effect  may  also  light  up 
the  relation  between  effort  and  result. 

The  army  of  Frederick  the  Great  is,  perhaps, 
the  first  big  instance  of  scientific  method  in  the 
service  of  efficiency.  Later,  the  Prussian  civil 
service,  French  engineering,  English  machine  in- 
dustry and  British  sanitary  administration  be- 
came the  world’s  marvels.  To-day,  the  great 
models  are  the  army,  consular  service,  labora- 
tories and  industrial  schools  of  Germany;  the 
navy,  municipalities  and  inspection  services  of 
Great  Britain;  the  highways,  art  industries  and 
viticulture  of  France;  and  the  experiment  sta- 
tions, reformatory  systems  and  industrial  plants 
of  the  United  States.  Not  a day  passes  but  the 
quest  for  maximum  efficiency  stirs  the  dry  bones 
in  some  neglected  field.  Its  watchwords  are  “ac- 
counting,” “unit-costs,”  “cross  checking,”  “case 
counting,”  “standardization,”  “scientific  organi- 
zation.” It  is  displacing  the  argument  method  of 
determining  policy.  Reformatory  and  juvenile 
court,  outdoor  relief  and  charity  organization, 
coeducation  and  vocational  training,  the  religious 
revival  and  the  institutional  church,  equal  suffrage 
and  the  commission  plan  of  city  government — 
they  will  all  stand  or  fall  according  to  the  outcome 
of  the  minute  study  of  their  results.  Nothing, 
however  fenced  and  sacred,  can  withstand  the  in- 
vasion, and  by  the  middle  of  this  century  the 
principle  of  efficiency  will  be  master  in  every  de- 
partment of  Western  civilization. 

Pitting  China  against  a West  armed  with  this 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


317 


technique  of  success  is  like  pitting  the  sixteenth- 
century  man  against  the  twentieth.  Our  fore- 
fathers would  match  us  in  intellect  but  not  in 
practical  power.  Likewise  the  Chinese,  for  all 
their  latent  ability,  are  hopelessly  outclassed  by  us 
in  efficiency.  Whenever  they  have  measured 
strength  with  the  West  this  ancient  and  proud 
people,  assimilator  of  so  many  savage  tribes  and 
barbarian  hordes,  suzerain  once  of  Korea,  Annam, 
Siam,  Burma  and  Nepaul,  who  have  lighted  in 
Eastern  Asia  a fire  at  which  half  a billion  human 
beings  warm  their  hands,  has  had  a maddening 
sense  of  impotence — as  of  a trance-bound  man 
who  can  neither  stir  nor  cry  out. 

It  was  Japan  that  shook  China’s  faith  in  her- 
self. Her  early  clashes  with  English  and  French 
made  little  impression,  for  she  had  met  warlike 
barbarians  before.  Defeat  her  they  might,  but  in 
the  end  she  led  them  captive  with  her  civilization. 
These  “red-haired”  people  were  simply  a new 
and  very  fierce  race  of  barbarians — that  was  all. 
But  when,  in  the  war  of  1894-95  the  “Eastern  is- 
landers,” who  owed  all  their  knowledge  and  arts 
to  China,  overmatched  them  at  every  point,  the 
Chinese  were  staggered.  What  else  but  their 
borrowings  from  the  West  could  have  made  the 
Japanese  suddenly  so  strong?  Then  came  in 
quick  succession  the  Emperor’s  reforms,  the  Em- 
press Dowager’s  coup  d’etat , the  humiliations  of 
1900,  and  the  burden  of  indemnities.  It  became 
clear  that  dismemberment  and  serfdom  would  be 
the  doom  of  China  unless  some  means  were  found 
is 


318 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


to  energize  this  ocean  of  men.  What  finally  sug- 
gested itself  was  the  adoption  of  Western  civiliza- 
tion in  its  main  features  and  education  in  the 
special  branches  that  underlie  the  arts  of  the 
West. 

The  old  education  of  China  was  concerned  with 
Chinese  history  and  classic  literature.  No 
science,  nothing  of  the  geography  or  history  of 
other  nations,  nothing  of  mathematics  but  the 
rudiments.  Of  social  science  and  government  no 
more  than  was  embodied  in  the  writings  of  the 
Sages.  The  object  was  to  store  the  memory  and 
cultivate  an  approved  literary  style.  The  gov- 
ernment provided  no  schools  but  held  competitive 
examinations  and  conferred  degrees.  Its  stamp 
gave  the  scholar  his  rating  and  to  the  successful 
the  doors  of  preferment  stood  open.  At  the 
capitals  were  acres  of  tiny  examination  cells 
where  annually  several  thousand  aspirants  passed 
three  days  in  the  throes  of  literary  composition. 
Every  morning  some  of  them  were  taken  out  dead. 
About  one  per  cent,  were  successful  and  entitled 
to  enter  the  great  triennial  competitive  examina- 
tion at  Peking.  From  the  victors  in  this  test  most 
of  the  government  posts  were  filled. 

Six  years  ago  the  Empress  Dowager  swept  all 
this  away  with  one  stroke  of  the  vermilion  pen  and 
decreed  a system  of  national  education  in  which 
schools  of  all  grades  were  to  be  provided  by  the 
government  and  the  course  of  study  should  in- 
clude Western  branches  as  well  as  Chinese 
studies.  There  was  to  be  a primary  school  in 


Wayfarers  resting  in  tlie  shade  of  a tree  protected  by 
the  monuments  and  the  temple 


Traffic  through  the  loess  en  route  to  the 
distant  railroad 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


' 321 


every  village,  a grammar  school  in  each  of  the 
walled  towns  from  which  a hsien  or  district  is 
governed,  a “middle  school”  in  every  prefecture 
and  for  the  province  a college  and  a normal 
school.  Frequently  commercial,  technical,  agri- 
cultural, military  and  law  schools  were  added. 
The  edifice  was  crowned  by  the  Imperial  Uni- 
versity at  Peking. 

Enthusiasm  for  the  new  education  spread  like 
wild  fire.  The  examination  cells  were  razed  and 
on  their  site  rose  college  halls.  Schools  were  set 
up  in  temples  and  to-day,  under  lofty  pillared 
roofs,  you  find  little  fellows  in  queues  reciting  be- 
fore the  grim  god  of  war  or  the  benign  Kwan- 
yin,  goddess  of  mercy.  Old  schoolmasters  threw 
themselves  into  “short  courses”  in  order  to  find 
a footing  in  the  new  system.  Those  who  had 
picked  up  the  rudiments  of  some  Western  branch 
suddenly  commanded  salaries  that  were  the  envy 
of  ripe  scholars  of  the  old  type.  Not  long  ago  a 
provincial  college  sent  to  a neighboring  Ameri- 
can school  for  a professor  of  mathematics.  He 
must  know  arithmetic  through  Proportion  and 
solve  algebraic  problems  with  one  unknown  quan- 
tity! The  dearth  of  teachers  prompted  a great 
rush  to  Japan  and  three  years  ago  there  were 
fifteen  thousand  Chinese  studying  in  Tokyo. 
Then  the  feeling  toward  Japan  cooled  and  now  the 
remnant  there  numbers  not  over  three  or  four 
thousand. 

The  report  of  the  Ministry  of  Education  for 
the  Chinese  year  ending  February  last  shows  that 


322 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


in  two  years  the  number  of  schools  at  Peking  has 
increased  from  206  to  252  and  the  number  of 
students  from  11,417  to  15,774.  Outside  Peking 
the  government  schools  grew  in  number  from 
36,000  to  42,444  and  the  count  of  students  had 
leaped  from  1,013,000  to  1,285,000.  The  number 
of  non-government  schools  exceeds  the  number 
of  government  schools.  In  Chihli,  which  naturally 
responds  more  promptly  than  any  other  province 
to  Peking  impulses,  the  provincial  board  of  educa- 
tion provides  a university  at  Tientsin,  a college  at 
Paotingfu,  17  industrial  schools,  3 higher  normal 
schools,  49  elementary  normal  schools,  2 medical 
colleges,  3 foreign-language  schools,  8 commercial 
schools,  5 agricultural  schools,  30  middle  schools, 
174  higher  elementary  schools,  101  middle 
elementary  schools,  8,534  lower  elementary 
schools,  131  girls’  schools  and  174  half-day  and 
night  schools. 

Since  Chihli  is  by  no  means  typical,  compare 
with  it  a backward  province  like  Shensi  with  its 
eight  million  inhabitants.  In  1909  its  board  of 
education  was  looking  after  two  colleges  and  a law 
school  with  520  students,  4 normal  schools  with 
410  students,  13  middle  schools  enrolling  800,  98 
higher  elementary  schools  teaching  3,433,  21 
middle  elementary  schools  with  817  pupils,  and 
1,948  lower  elementary  schools  with  41,121  pupils. 
Moreover,  180  girls  were  being  taught  in  two  girls’ 
schools. 

While  the  totals  for  the  Empire  are  impressive, 
if  one  holds  in  mind  the  enormous  population  of 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


323 


school  age  to  be  cared  for,  it  is  doubtful  if  the 
proportion  of  young  Chinese  in  school  to-day  is  a 
twenty-fifth  of  the  proportion  taught  in  American 
schools.  Since  the  surplus  of  the  people  above 
their  physical  needs  is  so  much  slighter  than  ours, 
it  will  be  impossible  for  China  to  expand  education 
to  the  Western  scale  until  the  application  of  new 
economic  methods  has  greatly  stimulated  the  pro- 
duction of  taxable  wealth. 

An  immense  demand  for  text-books  has  sprung 
up  and  at  Shanghai  the  Commercial  Press,  the 
biggest  publishing  house  in  Eastern  Asia,  employs 
a thousand  people.  From  it  issue  primers,  read- 
ers, histories,  geographies,  mathematics  and 
science  books  in  Chinese,  English  readers  suited 
to  adult  beginners,  annotated  English  classics, 
scrolls,  wall-maps  and  science  charts.  In  its 
translation  department  a hundred  are  kept  busy 
and  many  scholarly  minds  are  hammering  out 
ideographic  equivalents  for  the  thousands  of 
special  terms  in  science,  medicine  and  engineer- 
ing. These,  when  accepted  by  the  Bureau  of 
Terminology  at  Peking  become  a part  of  the 
Chinese  language. 

Of  course  in  the  new  education  as  in  the  old, 
Chinese  has  to  be  the  ground  work,  so  it  is  not 
in  the  elementary  schools  but  in  the  middle  schools 
and  colleges  that  one  meets  with  the  difficulty  of 
putting  new  wine  into  old  bottles.  The  contrasts 
between  these  institutions  and  our  own  throw  a 
strong  light  on  the  differences  between  China  and 
the  West. 


324 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


In  the  Board  of  War  at  Peking  there  are  six 
hundred  employes ; but  fifty  men  do  all  the  work. 
The  rest  are  parasites,  mostly  Manchus,  for  whose 
sake,  of  course,  the  Imperial  Government  pri- 
marily exists.  In  a government  so  graft-ridden 
it  would  he  too  much  to  expect  that  the  branch 
dealing  with  education  should  be  entirely  free. 
The  large  proportion  of  non-teaching  officers  in 
the  schools  suggests  that  soft  berths  have  been 
provided  for  somebody’s  relatives  or  friends.  In 
my  university  the  corps  of  instructors  is  five 
times  as  large  as  the  administrative  force ; but  in 
a Chinese  school  of  modern  languages  with  twenty- 
seven  teachers  I found  ten  administrators,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  servants.  Half  of  them  twiddle 
their  thumbs  and  draw  their  pay.  In  a higher 
commercial  school  with  twenty  teachers  there  are 
ten  officers,  of  whom  three  are  mere  sinecurists. 
In  a law  school  with  800  students  there  are  twenty- 
five  non-teaching  officials,  most  of  them  sinecurists. 
In  a technical  high  school  with  thirty  teachers  the 
dean  leaves  everything  to  the  manager,  the  treas- 
urer’s duties  are  performed  by  the  assistant 
treasurer,  the  secretary’s  by  the  assistant  secre- 
tary, and  the  head  clerk  does  nothing  but  warm 
a chair.  Four  sinecurists  out  of  twelve  officers ! 

In  view  of  the  lack  of  money  for  good  teachers 
the  abundance  of  costly  apparatus  looks  a bit  sus- 
picious. In  the  entrance  hall  of  a certain  school 
you  will  see  fine  biological  and  botanical  charts, 
but  will  learn  on  inquiry  that  no  one  on  the  staff 
can  present  the  subjects  or  put  the  charts  to  use. 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


325 


Elsewhere  you  will  find  a physical  laboratory  sup- 
plied with  good  apparatus  covered  with  dust.  The 
teacher  knows  nothing  of  physics  save  a little  of 
electricity.  In  a remote  provincial  college  I saw 
several  hundred  bottles  and  jars  of  chemicals — 
all  from  a single  supply  house  in  Tokyo — and  not 
one  in  twenty  had  the  seal  broken.  There  was 
at  least  $1,500  worth — enough  to  stock  three  of  our 
college  laboratories.  To  the  “old  China  hand” 
such  extravagance  indicates  that  some  one  is  get- 
ting a commission  on  the  supplies.  In  an  educa- 
tional center  far  up  the  Yangtse  the  authorities 
keep  bringing  out  American  teachers  at  great  ex- 
pense under  a year  contract  and  then  at  the  end 
of  the  year  replacing  them  with  others  no  better 
qualified.  Inasmuch  as  every  such  shift  calls  for 
an  allowance  of  $300  for  travel  money,  the  know- 
ing ones  suspect  that  some  official  gets  “squeeze” 
on  the  travel  money  and  that  is  the  reason  for 
the  incessant  changing  of  teachers. 

One  is  struck,  too,  by  the  casualness  with  which 
foreign  teachers  are  picked  up.  It  is  obvious  that 
hiring  an  Englishman  to  teach  botany  solely  on 
the  personal  recommendation  of  the  German  pro- 
fessor of  mathematics  is  no  way  to  get  good  men. 
When,  forty  years  ago,  the  Japanese  launched 
their  modem  schools,  they  applied  to  the  gov- 
ernments or  the  university  presidents  of  the  West 
for  teachers,  and  these  took  a pride  in  sending 
their  very  best.  Those  who  adapted  themselves 
were  retained  for  twenty  or  thirty  years — until 
Japan  had  reared  fit  scholars  of  her  own  to  take 


326 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


their  places.  But  the  Chinese,  selecting  in  hap- 
hazard fashion  and  holding  out  nothing  in  the  way 
of  security  of  tenure,  fail  to  get  from  the  West 
the  educational  help  they  so  greatly  need. 

Not  only  are  the  foreign  instructors  uneven  but 
the  Chinese  drop  them  altogether  too  soon.  In 
a certain  capital  I visited  a college  and  a normal 
school.  The  grounds  are  spacious  and  about  the 
dozen  courts  connected  by  covered  walks  and  en- 
closed by  low  tiled  buildings,  hangs  “the  still  air 
of  delightful  studies.”  But  the  four  hundred 
blue-gowned  young  men  are  taught  by  twenty- 
five  professors  of  whom  only  one  is  a foreigner, 
and  he  is  a Japanese.  None  of  the  others  has 
ever  been  outside  of  the  Middle  Kingdom.  The 
professor  of  German  is  a raw-looking  youth  who 
could  not  understand  one  sentence  in  four  in  that 
tongue.  In  preparation  the  professors  are,  per- 
haps, abreast  of  our  college  juniors.  It  is  “the 
blind  leading  the  blind” — yet  this  is  the  crown  of 
the  educational  system  of  a province  with  more 
people  than  Pennsylvania  has ! 

When  English  or  Americans  teach  in  China  no 
interpreter  is  necessary  since  all  the  pupils  in 
the  higher  schools  are  expected  to  know  English. 
But  foreigners  at  from  $1,400  to  $1,800  a year 
are  expensive.  J apanese  teachers  require  far  less 
pay,  but  as  they  have  to  teach  through  an  in- 
terpreter they  waste  half  the  student’s  time.  If 
the  interpreter  is  not  familiar  with  the  subject 
his  hearers  glean  little.  Moreover,  some  intelli- 
gent Chinese  firmly  believe  that  in  obedience  to 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


327 


secret  instructions  the  Japanese  teacher — of 
medicine,  for  example — keeps  back  from  his  stu- 
dents some  of  the  finer  points  of  his  subject.  When 
certain  strange  gaps  are  discovered  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  his  students,  the  professor  pleads  that  he 
duly  explained  these  matters  but  that  his  hearers 
failed  to  understand  him.  This  surmise  hooks  up 
with  the  undoubted  fact  that  in  the  Japanese 
military  schools,  when  the  professor  reaches  some 
new  or  special  point  in  his  subject,  he  requests  the 
Chinese  students  present  to  withdraw  and  dis- 
closes it  only  to  the  Japanese  students.  How- 
ever unjust  the  suspicion,  it  is  certain  that  the 
teachers  from  Japan  are  being  rapidly  dropped 
and  it  does  not  seem  likely  that  the  Japanese  are 
destined  to  be  the  conveyers  of  Western  learning 
to  China. 

The  broad  contrast  between  China  and  Japan 
in  utilizing  Western  scholars  runs  back  to  their 
difference  in  attitude  toward  our  civilization.  The 
Japanese  were  humble  and  teachable.  Long  ago 
they  had  borrowed  heavily  from  the  mainland  and 
they  were  not  too  proud  to  sit  awhile  at  the  feet 
of  Western  scholars.  But  the  Chinese,  remem- 
bering that  their  culture  is  all  their  own,  are  still 
too  haughty  to  recognize  fully  their  need  of  the 
foreign  educator.  They  simply  do  not  compre- 
hend the  massiveness  and  depth  of  this  alien  cul- 
ture they  are  trying  to  assimilate  so  quickly.  They 
look  upon  us  as  clever  barbarians  who  have  sur- 
passed them  in  mastery  of  the  physical  sciences 
and  the  mechanic  arts ; of  our  advancement  in  the 


328 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


knowledge  of  the  mind,  of  ethics,  of  society  and 
government,  the  very  fields  the  Chinese  regard  as 
distinctively  their  own,  they  have  no  apprecia- 
tion. 

Even  the  scholar-viceroy,  Chang  Chih-Tung, 
whose  plea  “China’s  Only  Hope”  created  such 
a furore  twelve  years  ago,  and  who  as  President 
of  the  Imperial  Board  of  Education  finally  in- 
troduced the  reform  he  had  championed — even 
he  never  realized  the  giant  bulk  of  our  learning. 
He  deemed  six  months  a reasonable  time  to  spend 
on  the  Western  branches  and  thought  two  years 
ample  for  complete  mastery.  So  he  left  the  cur- 
riculum so  clogged  with  Chinese  studies  that  the 
student  is  crushed  under  the  load.  The  poor  fel- 
low is  in  the  classroom  thirty-five  to  forty  hours 
a week.  Add  an  hour  a day  for  military  drill 
and  the  daily  time  left  him  for  study  and  read- 
ing is  not  over  two  hours.  The  result  too  often 
is  cram  and  sham.  Thus  at  one  time  the  cur- 
riculum called  for  calculus  in  the  junior  year. 
When  the  literary  chancellor  of  the  province  in- 
spected a certain  government  college  its  Ameri- 
can president  showed  him  that  the  juniors  could 
not  possibly  reach  calculus.  The  chancellor  in- 
sisted that  he  must  report  on  the  subject,  so 
at  his  suggestion  the  professor  of  mathematics 
gave  a couple  of  lectures  on  “the  uses  of  cal- 
culus.” The  students  were  examined  on  these 
and  thereupon  duly  certified  to  as  “proficient  in 
calculus.” 

Another  head,  a Han-lin  man,  after  the  cigars 


The  seething’  whirlpools  in  the  gorges  of  In  the  gorges  of  the  Upper  Yangtse 

the  Yangtse 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


331 


were  lighted,  confessed  that  he  hesitated  whether 
to  stick  or  to  resign  so  difficult  is  it  to  manage 
his  provincial  college  under  a Board  of  Educa- 
tion that  ignores  all  his  recommendations  and  pays 
no  attention  to  local  needs  and  conditions.  “How 
can  I keep  my  self-respect,”  he  broke  out,  “when 
constantly  I am  forced  to  do  foolish  things  ? Here 
is  an  applicant  thirty-five  years  old  who  passes  a 
brilliant  entrance  examination,  but  under  the  cast- 
iron  regulations  handed  down  from  Peking  I can’t 
admit  him  because  he  is  not  “ ‘a  graduate  of  a 
middle  school’  ”! 

This  Board  of  Education  is  composed  of  old 
literary  graduates  who,  having  never  been  out- 
side of  China,  underrate  the  learning  that  lies 
behind  the  terrible  efficiency  of  the  West.  When 
I called,  the  acting  head  was  a conservative 
Manchu,  who  seemed  to  feel  sure  that  China  knows 
what  she  wants  and  can  just  take  her  time  about 
it.  The  Manchus,  mark  you,  are  not  a cultured 
people.  In  the  time  of  Shakespeare  they  were 
where  the  Afghans  are  to-day.  Few  of  them  have 
ever  studied  abroad,  and  a Manchu  directing  the 
new  education  in  China  is  as  out  of  place  as  a 
Goth  directing  the  schools  of  Athens  in  the  fourth 
century.  I even  heard  of  a Manchu  literary 
chancellor  who  could  not  read  the  examination 
essays  submitted  for  provincial  honors.  So  he 
piled  them  on  the  canopy  of  his  bed,  poked  them 
with  his  cane  as  he  lay  smoking  his  pipe,  and 
the  thirteen  that  slid  off  first  were  declared 
winners ! 


332 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


With  us  education  is  a satisfying  career,  and 
the  president  of  the  state  university  is  not  schem- 
ing for  the  governor’s  chair.  But  in  China,  an 
ambitious  mandarin  who  has  been  prefect  and 
hopes  to  become  taotai  will  be  given  charge  of  a 
provincial  school  till  something  better  turns  up. 
As  he  brings  to  it  no  enthusiasm  or  special  train- 
ing he  is  apt  to  treat  it  as  any  other  government 
post.  I recall  a college  director  who  knows  noth- 
ing of  English  or  Western  learning  or  the  art 
of  education.  He  runs  the  school  for  secret  profit 
to  himself  and  welcomes  no  suggestions  from  the 
three  foreign  members  of  his  faculty.  The  Amer- 
ican instructor,  who  is  eager  to  help  the  institution 
reach  the  Western  standard,  is  politely  given  to 
understand  that  he  is  paid  to  do  definite  work 
and  keep  his  mouth  shut. 

The  characteristics  of  Chinese  students  throw  a 
strong  light  on  the  race  mind  at  its  present  stage. 
Their  reaction  to  teaching  is  much  weaker  than 
that  of  American  students.  It  is  against  China ’s 
educational  tradition  to  question  anything  taught. 
Teacher  and  text  are  invested  with  a prestige  un- 
known to  us  and  there  is  no  demand  for  explana- 
tion or  proof.  Moreover,  questioning  would  im- 
ply that  the  lecturer  had  not  been  clear.  Hence 
the  instructor  is  staggered  by  the  unresponsive- 
ness of  his  class.  He  can  only  illustrate  his  princi- 
ple on  every  side  in  the  hope  that  if  one  illustra- 
tion fails  another  will  ring  the  mental  bell. 

At  first  the  student  regards  the  experiment, 
cabinet  specimen,  or  microscope  slide  as  the  il- 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


333 


lustration  rather  than  the  source  of  the  principle ; 
for  nothing  in  Chinese  tradition  suggests  the  direct 
interrogating  of  Nature.  Later,  when  he  has 
learned  to  use  apparatus,  he  becomes  fascinated 
with  the  all-daylight  route  to  truth.  In  some 
schools  I found  the  students  enthusiastic  over 
chemistry  just  because  it  affords  them  the  novel 
pleasure  of  learning  by  demonstration.  They  are 
sharp  observers  and  nothing  in  the  experiment 
escapes  them.  They  catch  its  significance,  too, 
though  one  man  complained  that  his  boys  recorded 
with  scrupulous  care  unintended  and  irrelevant 
happenings  such  as  the  cracking  of  the  test  tube. 

Thanks  to  his  drill  in  recognizing  and  forming 
thousands  of  characters  some  of  them  calling  for 
more  than  thirty  strokes  of  the  brush,  the  Chinese 
youth  bears  the  palm  for  feats  of  memory.  He 
tries  to  learn  even  geometry  and  physics  by  rote. 
One  professor  called  the  attention  of  his  class  to 
certain  tables  of  logarithms  and  the  next  day  his 
students  complained  of  the  lesson  as  “very  hard.” 
They  had  tried  to  memorize  them.  In  geometry 
they  will  learn  the  proofs  given  them  by  heart 
but  do  not  take  quickly  to  mathematical  reason- 
ing. Says  one  teacher,  “I  have  to  give  them  a 
year  for  the  plane  geometry  the  American  boy 
gets  in  half  a year.  ’ ’ Says  another,  ‘ ‘ My  boys  get 
on  swimmingly  with  their  problems  if  I provide 
them  with  a rule;  without  it  they  flounder  help- 
less.” A third  estimates  that  not  over  a quarter 
of  his  students  can  think.  They  remember  words, 
but  not  ideas  or  trains  of  reasoning,  and  it  is 


334 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


doubtful  if  ten  per  cent,  can  handle  with  success 
a new  type  of  problem  for  which  they  have  been 
given  no  rule. 

All  this  would  be  very  flattering  to  our  race 
pride  but  for  the  fact  that  nearly  all  the  educa- 
tors attribute  it  to  defective  training  rather  than 
to  race  deficiency.  One  has  a boy  raised  in  a 
missionary  family  who  is  free  from  these  faults. 
Another  has  noticed  that  after  two  or  three  years 
his  boys  wake  up  and  begin  to  think  for  them- 
selves. A French  priest  tells  me  that  in  his 
seminary  there  are  four  students  who  would  be 
prizemen  in  France.  A mathematical  professor 
reports  originality  “here  and  there”  and  has  one 
pupil  who  has  solved  many  original  theorems. 
Another  has  a lad  in  calculus  who  is  the  peer  of 
any  white  youth  he  ever  taught.  A famous 
sinologue  scouts  the  idea  that  the  Chinese  lack  in 
reasoning  power  and  points  out  that  recently  the 
three  Chinese  in  the  Naval  Academy  at  Greenwich 
led  their  class  in  mathematics.  He  insists  that 
the  want  of  “come  back”  when  the  teacher  ad- 
vances a proposition  is  not  inborn,  but  is  due  to 
faults  in  the  lower  schools. 

There  is  some  complaint  that  the  students  lack 
tenacity.  They  are  easily  disheartened  and  give 
up  before  difficulties  that  would  only  arouse  the 
pugnacity  of  the  American  youth.  A Chinese 
lecturer  on  medicine  contrasted  rather  sadly  the 
lack  of  sustained  courage  in  his  students  with  the 
pluck  of  the  Japanese,  who  throw  themselves  in- 
defatigably  upon  their  hard  problems  as  their 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


335 


countrymen  dashed  again  and  again  upon  the  de- 
fenses of  Port  Arthur.  This  fault  may  be  due  to 
the  loss  of  the  military  virtues ; still,  it  may  be  a 
race  trait.  For  if  there  is  any  difference  between 
the  endowment  of  the  yellow  race  and  that  of 
the  white  it  will  be  found,  I think,  not  in  intellect, 
hut  in  energy  of  will. 

There  is  a striking  contrast  between  the  laxity 
in  the  Chinese  schools  and  the  strict,  semi-mili- 
tary discipline  that,  from  the  first,  prevailed  in 
the  schools  of  Japan.  One  hears  of  amazing  in- 
cidents— students  refusing  to  take  an  examination 
till  they  get  ready,  cutting  a written  recitation, 
cribbing  openly  and  without  rebuke,  forcing  the 
dean  to  cut  down  the  lesson  assigned,  withhold- 
ing the  customary  salute,  of  rising  and  bowing, 
from  the  teacher  who  has  not  corrected  their  exer- 
cises to  suit  them,  rebelling  against  a fee  of  $20  a 
year  for  food,  lodging  and  instruction,  slamming 
their  rice  on  the  floor  or  hurling  it  at  the  head 
of  the  steward  if  its  quality  does  not  please  them. 
The  dean  will  direct  the  foreign  teacher  to  set 
an  examination  all  can  pass,  or  else  to  mark  no 
paper  below  the  passing  grade.  Individually  the 
Chinese  student  is  docile,  even  reverent ; hut 
collectively  he  is  a terror  to  the  school  officers. 
The  wholesome  vigor  with  which  the  American 
educator  flunks,  whips,  or  expels  stands  in  re- 
freshing contrast  to  Chinese  timidity,  and  par- 
ents who  can  afford  it  show  their  appreciation  by 
sending  their  sons  to  mission  colleges. 

The  truth  is,  there  is  nothing  the  Chinese  lack 


336 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


so  much  as  discipline.  Discipline  of  the  army,  the 
workshop,  the  ship,  the  school,  the  athletic  field — 
yes,  even  of  the  home — is  needed  if  they  are  ever 
to  develop  that  smooth,  intelligent  team-work 
which  makes  our  race  so  formidable.  Their  stand- 
by now  is  mass  action — the  strike  or  the  boycott. 
During  the  last  two  years  every  school  in  Shan- 
tung is  said  to  have  had  a strike.  One  school 
struck  because  the  foreign  teachers  required  the 
student  to  pass  an  examination  before  they  would 
give  him  a testimonial.  Strikes  occur  alike  in 
boys’  schools  and  girls’  schools,  and  for  the  most 
un-understandable  reasons.  The  Chinese  school- 
master frequently  gives  in,  so  when  the  American 
principal  hardens  his  jaw  and  points  to  the  door, 
the  students  are  painfully  surprised.  This  facility 
in  concerted  action  is  really  a weakness  for  it  re- 
veals a certain  flabbiness  of  individuality  in  the 
Chinese.  When  folly  is  afoot  in  an  American  col- 
lege, there  will  be  some  who  by  standing  aloof 
spoil  the  unanimity  of  the  move  and  it  does  n’t 
come  off.  But  the  Chinese  lad  crumples  under 
mass  pressure.  All  his  life  he  has  been  trained 
to  get  in  line  and  so  the  spirit  of  conformity  rules 
him.  It  is  all  due  to  a struggle  for  existence  so 
severe  that  he  realizes  he  cannot  survive  without 
the  steady  backing  of  his  family,  clan  or  guild. 
To  take  a line  of  one’s  own  would  be  suicide. 

Chinese  gentlemen  wear  their  finger  nails  long 
to  show  they  don’t  work,  so  it  is  not  surprising 
that  young  China  despises  anything  with  the  taint 
of  manual  labor.  The  professor  of  engineering 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


337 


has  to  speak  sharply  to  his  students  to  get  them 
actually  to  carry  chain  and  drive  stakes,  for  they 
consider  it  “ coolie  work.”  Their  idea  is  to  listen 
and  look,  but  not  to  do.  When  the  mission  school 
at  Swatow  was  preparing  for  some  festivity  a 
lady  teacher  said,  “Come,  boys,  help  me  move 
these  heavy  benches.”  Not  a boy  stirred;  it  was 
“coolie  work.”  Since  then  they  have  learned 
better.  In  another  school  the  pupils  refused  to 
bring  in  more  chairs  to  seat  the  guests  at  a re- 
ception. They  had  been  trained  to  care  for  their 
rooms,  but  the  mandarins  were  present,  and,  know- 
ing the  standards  of  these  gentlemen,  they  were 
afraid  of  ‘ ‘ losing  face.  ’ ’ The  old-school  mandarin 
looks  down  on  the  mining  engineer  or  the  rail- 
way engineer  as  a kind  of  coolie  because  he  soils 
his  hands,  and  mummies  of  this  type  in  Peking 
are  trying  to  draw  an  invidious  distinction  be- 
tween the  returned  students  who  have  had  a liberal 
education  abroad  and  those  who  have  had  a 
technical  education,  the  latter  ranking  lower. 

Bodily  development  is  scorned  for  it  would  as- 
similate one  to  the  despised  coolie,  mountebank, 
or  soldier.  On  six  weeks  of  overland  journey,  I 
met  at  least  three  hundred  Chinese  with  sedan 
chairs  and  never  but  once  did  I see  the  owner  of 
a chair  walking.  Up  the  steepest  mountain  stair- 
ways they  insisted  on  being  carried,  lying  back 
limp  and  lackadaisical  as  if  it  were  a condescen- 
sion to  breathe.  To  stroll,  bird  cage  in  hand,  on 
the  city  wall  in  the  cool  of  the  evening  and  give 
birdie  an  airing,  is  their  idea  of  a gentleman’s 

16 


338 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


exercise.  When  the  tennis  court  was  first  used  by 
the  American  professors  in  a certain  North  China 
university,  the  Chinese  could  not  understand  the 
absurd  antics  and  caperings  of  their  erstwhile 
dignified  teachers.  “Can  you  not  afford  to  hire 
coolies  to  do  this  for  you?”  asked  an  interested 
but  scandalized  observer. 

Doctor  Merrins’  measurements  in  the  mission 
school  at  Wuchang  seem  to  show  that  the  Chinese 
boy  between  his  eleventh  and  his  sixteenth  year 
is  from  two  and  a half  to  four  inches  shorter, 
and  from  seven  to  fifteen  pounds  lighter,  than  the 
Boston  boy  of  the  same  age.  In  the  same  years 
the  Chinese  girl  appears  to  be  from  three  to  five 
inches  shorter  and  from  fourteen  to  twenty-four 
pounds  lighter  than  the  American  girl.  In  fact, 
American  girls  seem  to  be  heavier  than  the  boys 
of  Central  China.  The  thoracic  capacity  is  poor ; 
so  one  is  not  surprised  that  the  death  rate  from 
tuberculosis  in  the  government  schools  is  “enor- 
mous” owing  to  hard  study  and  close  confine- 
ment during  the  growing  period,  and  that  half 
the  young  Chinese  entering  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  gym- 
nasium at  Shanghai  show  consumptive  tendencies, 
and  are  at  once  urged  to  open  the  windows  of  their 
sleeping  rooms,  remove  the  curtains  from  their 
beds  and  take  special  gymnastic  exercises. 

One  lady  principal  complains  that  her  girls  are 
in  a constant  blush  while  studying  hygiene,  for 
they  have  been  taught  to  ignore  their  bodies.  Nor 
is  it  easy  to  make  them  hold  themselves  erect. 
Their  Chinese  teachers,  like  all  literary  men,  culti- 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


339 


vate  the  scholar’s  stoop  and  the  pupils  imitate  it 
just  as  men  with  good  eyesight  wear  broad- 
rimmed  goggles  in  order  to  look  like  scholars. 
Another  principal  found  that  in  their  field-meets 
his  pupils  relied  on  their  natural  powers  of  run- 
ning and  jumping.  The  idea  of  deliberately  train- 
ing for  athletic  proficiency  did  not  appeal  to  them. 
“Bob”  Gailey  at  Peking  will  tell  you  that  at  first 
the  Chinese  hung  back  in  athletic  sports  for  fear 
of  “losing  face”  by  being  defeated.  Sometimes 
a football  team  would  quit  abruptly  when  the  game 
was  going  against  them.  Gradually,  however, 
they  are  being  brought  around  to  the  spirit  of 
sportsmanship. 

Few  of  the  government  schools  have  got  be- 
yond the  idea  of  drill  or  provided  a director  of 
physical  training.  You  see  the  students  under  a 
big  roof  swinging  Indian  clubs  or  drilling  with 
rifles.  In  one  case,  indeed,  lissome  young  men 
with  queues  were  skipping  about  the  tennis  courts, 
but  they  wore  their  hampering  long  gowns  and 
their  strokes  had  the  snap  of  a kitten  playing  with 
a ball  of  yarn.  In  fact,  the  first  football  and  base- 
ball in  China  were  played  by  boys  in  those  same 
blue  gowns.  In  developing  a taste  for  sports  the 
mission  schools  succeed  far  better  than  the  gov- 
ernment schools  because  the  men  in  charge  have 
genuine  enthusiasm  and  bring  their  personal  in- 
fluence to  bear. 

The  response  of  the  yellow  race  indicates  sport 
as  something  of  universal  human  appeal.  The 
last  of  the  all-China  field  meets  at  Canton  under 


340 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


the  lead  of  that  noble  institution,  the  Canton 
Christian  College,  lasted  for  two  days,  enrolled 
over  a thousand  contestants  and  drew  twenty 
thousand  spectators.  The  first  meet  of  the  kind 
at  Tientsin  attracted  seven  thousand,  and  the 
second,  held  November  last,  brought  together 
twenty  thousand.  When  one  hundred  and  forty 
athletes  strove  for  honors  in  the  national  games 
held  at  Nanking  in  connection  with  the  Nanking 
Industrial  Exhibition,  a thousand  enthusiastic 
Chinese  came  all  the  way  from  Shanghai,  two 
hundred  miles  distant.  The  Chinese  now  manage 
such  events  themselves  and  officials  from  the 
Viceroy  down  to  the  hsien  magistrate  attend  and 
applaud.  Just  as  in  inner  Borneo  football  is  the 
one  enthusiasm  common  to  Britons  and  Malays, 
so  the  athletic  feats  of  Young  China  are  weav- 
ing a new  bond  between  Chinese  and  Anglo- 
Saxons.  None  of  them  suspect  us  of  sinister  de- 
signs in  inciting  their  youth  to  make  the  most  of 
the  body.  But  athletics  will  strengthen  the 
character  of  Young  China  as  well  as  the  body.  In 
the  stations  out  along  the  wire  that  connects 
Peking  with  Thibet  I found  graduates  from  the 
telegraph  schools  of  Shanghai  and  Tientsin  turn- 
ing themselves  into  effeminate  dandies  with  love- 
locks framing  the  face  and  giving  themselves  up 
to  sensual  pleasure,  because  their  lives  held  no 
interest  to  compete  with  the  gaudy  lure  of  the 
“sing-song”  girls. 

All  his  teachers  bear  witness  to  the  beauty,  ac- 
curacy and  detail  of  the  anatomical  or  botanical 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


341 


drawings  made  by  the  Chinese  student.  This 
deft  hand  comes  from  his  long  practice  in  form- 
ing thousands  of  characters  which  may  not  be 
carelessly  scrawled  as  ours  are,  but  must  be  made 
with  great  delicacy  and  precision  if  they  are  to 
be  distinguished  apart.  From  this  same  handling 
of  the  brush  comes  the  student’s  light,  sure  touch 
in  preparing  specimens  or  slides.  But  this  sup- 
pleness of  hand  is  bought  with  a price.  “Why 
is  it,”  I asked  the  heads  of  the  two  Imperial 
Universities  of  Japan,  “that  your  students  reach 
the  university  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  three 
years  later  than  the  American  students?”  “Be- 
cause,” they  agreed,  “we  are  burdened  with  a 
clumsy  language  which  takes  from  three  to  five 
years  longer  to  master  than  your  alphabetic 
language.”  Here  is  a heavy  handicap  which  the 
peoples  of  the  Far  East  must  bear  while  they  are 
vying  with  the  West.  “How  long  will  it  take,” 
I asked  a scholar  who  has  spent  half  his  life  in 
China,  “before  the  Chinese  give  up  their  ideo- 
graphs?” “Perhaps  five  centuries,”  he  replied. 

There  is  a very  practical  aspect  to  the  problem. 
A font  of  our  type  weighs  fifty  pounds  and  costs 
five  dollars;  a font  of  Chinese  type  weighs  half 
a ton  and  costs  a hundred  dollars.  No  type- 
writer can  write  Chinese  characters,  no  linotype 
machine  can  set  them.  The  keyboard  would  be 
as  big  as  a dinner  table!  A typesetter  in  the 
Commercial  Press  walks  about  a pen  four  feet 
by  seven  and  fills  bis  stick  from  seven  thousand 
little  boxes  each  about  an  inch  and  a half  square. 


342 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


It  costs  more  to  equip  and  produce  a Chinese 
newspaper  and  it  cannot  hope  to  be  so  universally 
read  as  one  of  our  sheets.  For  the  Celestials 
can  never  teach  so  large  a proportion  of  their 
youth  to  read  a language  that  takes  three  or  four 
times  as  long  to  learn  as  a Western  language. 

At  present  not  one  woman  in  a thousand  and 
not  one  man  in  ten  can  read.  Nevertheless,  the 
reformers  are  agitating  for  compulsory  education. 
They  propose  that  the  scholars  work  out  a set  of 
three  thousand  simplified  characters.  Establish 
schools  everywhere  to  spread  a knowledge  of 
these  among  the  people.  Let  the  newspapers  use 
only  these  characters.  Let  a board  of  trust- 
worthy men  send  out  from  Peking  news  regard- 
ing public  affairs  and  let  local  committees  print 
and  circulate  this  civic  news  in  a sheet  which 
every  man  will  be  expected  to  subscribe  for. 
Utopian,  to  be  sure,  but  it  shows  the  reformers 
realize  that  the  selfish  private  spirit  has  been 
their  country ’s  bane. 

Right  here  we  come  upon  the  gravest  problem 
arising  from  China’s  change  of  base;  whence 
will  come  the  morality  of  to-morrow?  In  the 
reaction  against  the  old  classical  education  with 
its  emphasis  on  ethics  there  has  been  a tendency 
to  neglect  instruction  in  morals.  Though  they 
must  do  homage  once  a month  to  Confucius’ 
tablet,  the  young  men  are  inwardly  scoffing. 
“Confucius!  He  never  rode  on  a train  or  used 
the  telephone  or  sent  a wireless.  What  did  he 
know  of  science?  He  is  only  an  old  fogy!”  And 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


343 


so  the  Sage,  whose  teachings  have  kept  myriads 
within  the  safe  way,  has  little  authority  over  the 
educated  part  of  the  rising  generation.  What 
they  covet  is  riches  and  power;  and,  perceiving 
that  the  wealth  and  martial  prowess  of  the  West 
rests  immediately  upon  exact  knowledge,  the 
students  are  all  for  science.  The  hidden  moral 
foundations  of  Western  success  they  are  apt  to 
overlook.  Neglecting  their  own  idealism  and 
missing  ours,  they  may  develop  a selfish  material- 
istic character  which  will  make  the  awakening  of 
China  a curse  instead  of  a blessing. 

At  this  crisis  the  dozen-odd  mission  colleges 
planted  about  the  Empire,  mainly  by  Americans, 
have  the  opportunity  to  render  a great  and  states- 
manlike service.  In  organization,  management, 
staff,  curriculum  and  discipline  the  best  of  them 
are  far  superior  to  the  government  colleges.  In 
their  work  they  apply  a scientific  pedagogy  of 
which  the  Chinese  know  nothing.  They  impart 
Western  ideals  of  bodily  development,  clean  liv- 
ing, individuality  and  efficiency.  They  study 
Confucian  ethics  with  deep  reverence;  they  pre- 
sent also  the  Christian  outlook  on  life.  Though 
many  of  their  graduates  are  not  Christians,  they 
go  out  with  high  ideals.  The  gentry  more  and 
more  appreciate  these  colleges  and  gladly  send 
their  sons  thither  when  the  fees  are  made  high 
enough  to  eliminate  any  element  of  gratuity. 

Already  wealthy  Chinese  are  making  gifts  to 
these  colleges.  They  will  give  much  more  if  the 
religious  societies  that  founded  them  could  widen 


344 


THE  CHANGING  CHINESE 


their  vision  to  perceive  that  the  true  destiny  of 
these  colleges  is  to  promote  higher  education  in 
China,  just  as  Harvard,  Yale,  Princeton  and 
scores  of  other  colleges  founded  with  Christian 
money  to  train  clergyman,  recognized  at  last  that 
their  true  destiny  was  to  promote  higher  educa- 
tion in  America.  Let  these  mission  colleges  make 
Christian  indoctrination  and  worship  optional  in- 
stead of  compulsory  on  their  students.  Let  them 
give  patriotic  Chinese  representation  on  their 
governing  boards.  Let  them,  without  surrender- 
ing autonomy,  seek  for  some  basis  on  which  they 
can  enter  the  educational  system  of  the  Govern- 
ment. Let  them  but  have  faith  that  the  whole- 
hearted promotion  of  the  higher  intellectual  life 
cannot  but  widen  the  sway  of  Christian  ideals  and 
they  will  become  a giant  power  for  good  at  this 
crisis  in  Chinese  morals. 

The  Crucifixion  was  two  hundred  and  eighty 
years  old  before  Christianity  won  toleration  in  the 
Roman  Empire.  It  was  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
eight  years  after  Luther’s  defiance  before  the 
permanence  of  the  Protestant  Reformation  was 
assured.  After  the  discovery  of  the  New  World 
one  hundred  and  fifteen  years  elapsed  before  the 
first  English  colony  was  planted  here.  No  one 
who  saw  the  beginning  of  these  great,  slow,  his- 
toric movements  could  grasp  their  full  import  or 
witness  their  culmination.  But  nowadays  world 
processes  are  telescoped  and  history  is  made  at 
aviation  speed.  The  exciting  part  of  the  trans- 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


345 


formation  of  China  will  take  place  in  our  time. 
In  forty  years  there  will  be  telephones  and  mov- 
ing-picture shows  and  appendicitis  and  sanitation 
and  baseball  nines  and  bachelor  maids  in  every 
one  of  the  thirteen  hundred  hsien  districts  of  the 
Empire.  The  renaissance  of  a quarter  of  the 
human  family  is  occurring  before  our  eyes  and 
we  have  only  to  sit  in  the  parquet  and  watch  the 
stage. 


\ 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Age  at  marriage,  60,  97,  110, 
209. 

Age,  sanctity  of,  193. 

Agriculture,  46,  71-78,  110, 
122,  302. 

Alcoholism,  144,  172. 

American  mission  work,  224, 
227. 

Ancestor  worship,  69,  96,  110. 

Anglo-Saxons,  52,  340. 

Anti-matrimonial  associations, 
204. 

Anti-Opium  Edict,  145,  146, 
156,  157,  161,  217. 

Anti-Opium  societies,  157,  164. 

Army,  the  new,  113-4,  162, 
280-282. 

Arrested  development,  54-5. 

Asile  de  la  Sainte  Enfance,  101, 
234. 

Assimilative  power,  57,  62,  317. 

Associations,  prohibition  of, 
145. 

Athletics,  339-40. 

Birth  rate,  110. 

Blood-poisoning,  resistance  to, 
35-39. 

Board  of  Education,  97,  328- 
331. 

Boats,  13,  14,  310. 

Bodily  development,  337-340. 


Boys,  96-101,  182,  272,  298, 
301,  304,  333-339. 

Brevity  of  life,  84,  104. 

Bridges,  271,  286,  303. 

Buddhism,  29,  218,  255-6,  266, 
279. 

Burnings  of  opium  parapher- 
nalia, 164. 

Camels,  29,  260. 

Canton,  7,  85,  90,  175,  340. 

Capital,  need  of,  120. 

Cash,  85-6,  265,  282. 

Cato  the  Elder,  203. 

Cave  dwellings,  21-22,  74. 

Cess  pools,  295,  301-2. 

Chairing,  286,  307,  337. 

Chang  Chih-Tung,  328. 

Character,  Chinese,  29-30,  233- 
235,  255,  266,  282,  304-309, 
334,  336,  243. 

Cheapness  of  labor,  117-120, 
297. 

Cheapness  of  life,  89,  90. 

Chengtu,  117,  302-304. 

Child-bearing,  36-7. 

Child  betrothal,  181,  194,  206, 
209-10. 

Children,  14,  17,  33,  41,  45,  69, 
85,  98-105,  301,  304. 

China  Inland  Mission,  255,  274. 

Chloroform,  reaction  to,  40. 


350 


INDEX 


Christianity,  217,  219-20,  223; 
fruits,  233-235 ; official  rec- 
ognition, 235-6;  uplift  of 
women,  205,  240-242;  pros- 
pects, 255-259. 

Christians,  198,  205,  212,  217, 
230-239,  241,  250,  274. 

Cigarettes,  86. 

Cities,  3,  4,  14,  15,  78,  95,  109, 
181,  286,  295,  303. 

Civilization,  stage  of,  54,  57. 

Clan  ties,  17,  69,  98,  127-8, 
235. 

Cleanliness,  235,  246,  249. 

Club-houses,  13. 

College  students,  97,  209,  332- 
343. 

Combativeness,  112-114,  307-8. 

Commercial  competition,  1 14— 
119,  138. 

Commercial  morality,  125-128, 
137. 

Commercial  Press,  the,  323. 

Commissions,  125-127. 

Compromise,  91. 

Concubinage,  101,  188-9,  204. 

Confucianism,  202,  217,  256-7, 
279,  285. 

“Confucio-Christianity,”  256. 

Confucius,  212,  256-7,  342. 

Conjugal  love,  196,  240. 

Conservation,  need  of,  24-27, 
271-273. 

Conservatism,  53-58. 

Coolies,  84-5,  143,  294,  296-7, 
308. 

Crop  watchers,  267. 

“Crying  one’s  wrongs,”  197. 

DAUGnTER-IN-LAW,  198. 

Death  rate,  109-10. 


Deforestation,  7,  18,  22-27,  73, 
79,  271-273. 

Density  of  population,  105,  302. 

Dilapidation,  8,  11. 

Discipline,  335-6. 

Disease,  298,  338 ; resistance  to, 
35-46. 

Domestic  animals,  3,  13,  71, 
294. 

Dreariness  of  life,  105,  142-3, 
287,  301. 

Dress,  11,  12,  105,  143,  189,  273. 

Economic  difficulties  of  China, 
66,  69,  110. 

Education,  the  old,  318;  the 
new,  318-344;  extent,  321- 
323. 

Efficiency,  the  principle  of, 
312-316. 

Eloquence,  52. 

Emigration,  106-111,  121,  137. 

Employment,  scarcity  of,  91. 

Empress  Dowager,  145,  179, 
261,  317. 

Engineers,  Chinese  as,  61. 

England,  opium  policy  of,  140- 
1,  170-172. 

English  mission  work,  224, 
227. 

Erosion,  23-4,  73,  271-273. 

Ethics,  65,  203,  328,  342-3. 

Examinations,  54,  318. 

Expert,  the  white,  61,  132-3. 

Exploitation  of  nature,  70-79, 
121-2,  134,  137,  286,  302. 

“Face,”  dread  of  losing,  169, 
337. 

Familism,  65,  102. 


INDEX 


Family,  the  Chinese,  17,  65,  69, 
96-102,  110,  188-190,  193, 
196,  202-3,  287. 

Family  intercourse,  7,  287. 

Family  size,  97-101,  110. 

Famine,  90,  106,  108. 

Favoritism,  127-131. 

Fecundity,  69,  110,  142. 

Female  education,  202-3,  205- 
213,  241,  245. 

Fengsiangfu,  282-286. 

Ferry,  310. 

Fertility,  means  of  preserving, 
77-8,  302. 

Fevers,  reaction  to,  36-41. 

Flea  traps,  89. 

Floors,  8,  105,  301. 

Fokien,  23,  106,  109,  121,  157, 
160,  181,  229,  239. 

Foochow,  162-164,  183. 

Food,  78-80,  142-3,  151,  160, 
274,  301-2. 

Footbinding,  36,  64,  174-182, 
193,  246,  294,  312. 

“Foreign  devil,”  293. 

Foreign  enterprises,  120,  131. 

Foreign  goods,  279. 

Foreign  teachers,  325-327,  332. 

Formosa,  103,  142. 

Fouchou  hsien,  158-9. 

Fruit,  72,  134-5,  301. 

Fuel,  7,  79. 

Fuel-gatherers,  23,  79. 

Gambling,  95,  141-2,  190,  235, 
265. 

Game,  27,  304. 

Gardens,  72,  265. 

Gentry,  Chinese,  8,  27,  40,  72, 
166,  180,  190,  239,  265-6, 
343. 


351 

Girls,  98,  104,  177-182,  241, 
242,  287,  288,  388. 

Girls’  schools,  203-211,  217, 
245. 

Gleaning,  80,  83,  268. 

Government,  22,  27,  52,  90,  95, 
109,  121-2,  127,  130-134, 

151-166,  293,  312,  318. 

Graves,  18. 

Great  Wall,  27-29. 

Group  solidarity,  91,  127, 

235-6. 

Groves,  sacred,  289. 

Guild-halls,  12,  13. 

Hakkas,  122,  175,  183. 

Haudicrafts,  84. 

Hanyang  steel  works,  117-8, 
132. 

Harvesters,  267-8,  282,  285. 

Heart  disease,  84-5,  196. 

Home,  the  Chinese,  177,  190. 

Hong  Kong,  17,  41,  101,  103, 
109,  203,  210,  234. 

House-boats,  13,  14. 

Humor,  63. 

Hunting,  27,  304. 

Ideals,  233,  304-309. 

Idealism,  92,  233-4. 


Ideographs, 

341-2. 

187,  323, 

333, 

Ideographic 

341-2. 

language, 

54, 

Idols,  92,  218-9,  288-9,  321. 
Illiteracy,  64,  110,  145,  342. 
Immigration  of  Chinese,  47-8. 
Immunity,  39-46. 

Imperial  Government,  121-2, 
128,  139-40,  145,  151,  160- 
162,  180,  223,  317-8. 


352 


INDEX 


Indemnity  for  mission  losses, 
252,  255. 

Individualism,  65. 

Individuality,  336. 

Individualization,  69,  206-211. 

Industrial  competition  of 
Chinese,  47-8,  114. 

Industrial  management,  122- 
137. 

Inefficiency,  133-4,  310-317. 

Infant  mortality,  33,  102-104, 
109. 

Infanticide,  98,  104,  178,  193, 
197,  241,  285. 

Inns,  143,  294-5. 

Insensibility,  40-1. 

Insanity,  196. 

Intellectual  capacity,  58,  61- 
63,  315,  317,  333-4. 

Intervention  in  law-suits,  252. 

Irrigation,  302-3. 

Japanese,  the,  8,  11,  53,  63, 
109,  113-4,  182,  317,  325- 
327,  334-5,  341. 

Jews  in  China,  the,  57. 

Junks,  13,  310. 

Kansuh,  106,  141,  152,  160, 
174,  175,  280,  285. 

Kerosene,  7,  29,  86,  279. 

Kidnapping,  98. 

Kinship  bond,  17. 

Kowloon,  23,  24. 

Kuangtung,  101,  106,  175. 

Labor  cost,  119-20. 

Laborers,  Chinese  as,  47-8. 

Lamaism,  216. 

Lamps,  86. 

Lepers,  89,  90. 


“Liberty  girls,”  210-1. 

Lighting,  4-7,  303. 

Loess,  18-22,  24,  78,  261. 

Male  predominance,  187-193, 
200-204. 

Manchus,  57,  113,  145,  175, 
280,  324,  331. 

Mandarins,  3,  4,  122,  127,  131, 
133,  151-159,  217,  219,  224, 
286,  290,  307,  312,  331-2, 
337. 

Manufactures,  114-119,  137. 

Marriage,  96-7,  194-5,  204-211. 

Mass  action,  91,  336. 

“Mass  movements,”  236. 

Match  making,  96,  178-8,  194- 
5,  241,  209-10,  312. 

Materialism,  91-2,  233. 

Memory,  feats  of,  333. 

Mencius,  96,  184,  212. 

Middle  Ages,  China’s  resem- 
blance to  the,  3,  262,  315. 

Military  potentiality,  46,  112- 
114,  280-282,  307-8. 

Mind  of  Chinese,  ch.  III. 

Mineral  deposits,  70,  120-122, 
262. 

Mining,  121-2,  131-133,  262. 

Mining  concessions,  120. 

Mission  colleges,  224,  227,  245, 
335-6,  339,  343-4. 

Mission  girls’  schools,  179,  205- 
211,  245,  249,  275,  338. 

Mission  property,  229,  251-2, 
255. 

Missionaries,  157-8,  160,  179, 
206,  212,  273-275,  279;  nu- 
merical strength,  219-20;  re- 
ception, 220-224 ; national 
contrasts,  224-227 ; types, 


INDEX 


353 


216-7,  228-230;  influence, 

245-249;  critics,  249-251; 
mistakes,  251-2;  problems, 
252,  255;  outlook,  255-259. 

Missionary  homes,  205,  274. 

Mixed  society,  absence  of,  141, 
190. 

Mobs,  64,  113,  220,  223,  252. 

Modesty,  female,  183-5,  189. 

Mohammedans,  Chinese,  106, 
112,  174,  276,  280. 

Money  changing,  265. 

Mongols,  28-9,  267,  286,  294, 
298. 

Monuments,  12,  187,  261. 

Morality,  211-2,  261,  311-2, 
342-344. 

Mother-in-law,  197-8. 

Natubal-foot  Society,  177, 
180-1,  217. 

Natural  selection,  42-48. 

Nepotism,  91,  127-8. 

Nestorianism,  57,  276. 

Neurasthenia,  196. 

Newspapers,  110,  145,  166, 

341-2. 

North  China,  3,  18-22,  27-30, 
294-5. 

North  Chinese,  29,  30. 

Offspring,  appreciation  of,  89, 
98-101. 

Old  age  support,  65,  98. 

Old  people,  64-5. 

Opium,  price  of,  149,  150,  158- 
160,  170;  the  trade  in,  139, 
140,  170-172,  250. 

Opium  dens,  closing  of,  162- 
166. 

Opium  growing,  description, 


146,  149;  extent,  150,  151; 
suppression,  151-160,  170, 

172,  217. 

Opium  refuge,  217. 

Opium  smoking,  history,  ISO- 
141;  extent,  95,  141;  causes, 
141-145,  190;  effects,  139, 
141,  161,  162,  172,  265;  sup- 
pression, 109,  160-169;  opin- 
ion regarding,  166,  169,  224. 

Opium  war,  140. 

Originality,  54. 

Overcrowding,  39,  45-6. 

Overpopulation,  66,  69,  104-5, 
110,  301-2. 

Overwork,  84-5. 

Pace  of  labor,  the,  84-5. 

Pailows,  12,  187. 

Parasitism,  280,  324. 

Parental  authority,  193,  204- 
206,  210,  240. 

Patriotism,  the  new,  145,  166, 
169,  170,  281. 

Pawn  shops,  12. 

Pei-lin,  276. 

Peking,  4,  156,  171,  216,  251, 
276,  318,  321,  323-4,  331, 
342. 

Peking-Hankow  Railway,  21, 
24,  128. 

Peking  Syndicate,  120. 

Philanthropy,  245. 

Physical  types,  267,  298. 

Physicians,  opinions  of,  34-42. 

Physique,  Chinese,  34-48,  297- 
8,  337-8. 

Pilgrims,  266. 

Plague,  90,  109. 

Plane  of  living,  45-47,  80-86, 
105,  142,  287,  301. 


354 


INDEX 


Police,  4,  267. 

Politeness,  64. 

Poppy,  cultivation  of  the,  140, 
146-151. 

Population,  Chinese  ideas 
about,  102. 

Population  pressure,  66,  69,  74, 
110-1,  197. 

Porters,  84-5,  294,  296-7,  308. 

Poverty,  80-95,  98,  105,  287, 
301-2. 

Prayer,  92,  233,  289. 

Private  rights,  268,  293. 

Progress,  54-63,  92,  303-4,  345. 

Propriety,  182-184,  201,  242, 
268. 

Protestants,  219-20,  230. 

Psychology,  Chinese,  ch.  III. 

Public  opinion,  birth  of,  166, 
169,  245. 

Public  spirit,  lack  of,  22-3, 
145,  282,  293. 

Punishments,  90,  131,  156,  162, 
165-6,  188,  293-4. 

Race  traits,  chs.  II  and  III. 

Railway  building,  121,  125-6. 

Railways,  109,  120. 

Rearing  marriage,  194,  210. 

Registration  of  opium  smokers, 
163-4. 

Reliability,  52-3. 

Religions,  144,  218,  255. 

Resistance  to  magistrates,  152- 
156. 

“Rest  houses,”  18. 

“Rice  Christians,”  230. 

Rice  culture,  3,  73,  77,  294-5. 

Rites,  17,  96,  235. 

River  traffic,  13. 


Rivers,  characteristics  of,  21, 
24. 

Roads,  13,  22,  71,  78,  150,  260- 
1,  290,  293-296. 

Roman  Catholics,  219-20,  230, 
236. 

Roman  Empire,  Christianity 
in,  257-8,  285. 

Sages,  the,  57,  187,  201,  308, 
312. 

Sanitation,  48,  109. 

Scholars,  40,  233,  239,  276,  307- 
9,  318,  339. 

School  apparatus,  324-5. 

School  girls,  42,  179,  206-212, 
338. 

Schools,  government,  321-332, 
338-9,  343. 

Schools,  mission,  179,  205-211, 
245,  249,  275,  338. 

Science,  natural,  249,  315,  318, 
327,  333,  343. 

Screens  in  church,  242. 

Septicaemia,  resistance  to,  35- 
39. 

Sewage-disposal,  78. 

Shanghai,  117-8,  210. 

Shansi,  105-6,  117,  132,  155, 
159,  178,  261-272. 

Shensi,  106,  139,  141,  149-50, 
176,  183,  285,  322. 

Shutung,  134. 

Sianfu,  13,  117,  159,  275-280. 

Signal  towers,  261. 

Silk-winding  girls,  204. 

Sinecurists,  128,  131,  324. 

Sleeping,  41-2,  86,  89. 

Smallpox,  39. 

Soil  exploitation,  71-77. 


INDEX 


355 


Soil  waste,  prevention  of, 
77-8. 

Soldiers,  113-4,  155,  281,  307- 
8,  312. 

Sons,  desire  for,  96. 

Soochow,  219. 

South  China,  12-14,  294-5. 

South  Chinese,  29,  30,  36. 

Sport,  indifference  to,  142,  266, 
304. 

“Squeeze,”  122-127,  151-2,  155- 
6,  325-332. 

“Standing  frame,”  293. 

Stationary  stage,  70. 

Stealing,  83,  131,  267,  290. 

Stigma  on  manual  labor,  249, 
298,  307,  336,  337. 

Streets,  3,  295. 

Struggle  for  existence,  ch.  IV, 
137,  142,  273,  285,  287,  296, 
336. 

Suicide,  52,  149,  196,  198,  201, 
204. 

Superstition,  42,  64,  70,  122, 
218-19,  288-9,  310-11,  315. 

Surgical  operations,  reaction  to, 
34-40. 

Survival  of  the  fittest,  33,  42, 
45-6. 

Szechuan,  89,  117,  141,  150, 
158,  160,  251,  286,  297-304. 

Taiyuanfu,  261-2. 

Tartar  bannermen,  280. 

Teachers,  321-328,  338. 

Temples,  216,  218-9,  289,  321. 

Termini,  289. 

Testing  bureaus,  161-2. 

Threshing,  268,  294. 

Torture,  use  of,  40. 


Translation,  224,  245,  323. 

Transport  cost,  262,  297. 

Treaty  of  Tientsin,  140,  171. 

Tree  growing,  22-3,  72,  289, 
296. 

Tree  worship,  218. 

Tuberculosis,  41,  335. 

Tung  Ho  Valley,  74. 

Types,  contrast  of,  29,  30. 

Uppeb  classes,  the,  8,  27,  40,  62, 
72,  166,  178,  180,  190,  239, 
265-6. 

Utilitarianism,  91-2,  233. 

Vice,  95,  109,  172. 

Vitality  of  the  Chinese,  ch.  II. 

Wages,  117-120. 

Watchmen,  311. 

Water  supply,  4. 

Water  wheels,  302. 

Wealthy,  the,  8,  95,  265-6, 
343. 

Wei  River,  22. 

West  River,  7,  23,  175. 

Wheat  harvest,  160,  183, 

267-8. 

Windows,  7,  265,  287. 

Winds,  18. 

Wives,  Chinese,  195-205, 
240-1. 

Women,  36,  39,  145;  restric- 
tions on,  174-184;  status  of, 
187-204;  revolt  of,  204; 
emancipation  of,  205-215. 

Wood,  scarcity  of,  266,  271-2. 

Wu  Ting  Fang,  122,  174. 


356 


INDEX 


Yang  and  Yin, 
Yellow,  as  the 
21. 

“Yellow  peril,” 


187,  202.  Yellow  River,  24,  286,  310. 

national  color,  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  309. 

Yunnan,  106,  141,  150. 

the,  112-117. 


THE  END 


Date  Due 

Ap  4 '4 

$ 

